We need you now more than ever. Our people are our future. Globally and nationally, wild animals and plants are in steep decline. We appear to be reaching critical tipping points around this loss of biodiversity as well as around climate change. Both crises are interlinked. Human society cannot prosper without wildlife and healthy natural systems. Kent’s wildlife needs to be restored to much higher levels. We can no longer allow common things to become rare.
At Kent Wildlife Trust, we are all conservationists with passion, inspiration, collaboration, ambition and evidence at the heart of everything we do to make our vision of a Wilder Kent no longer just a goal, but a reality.
Our skills are unique and diverse, just like nature
We restore, protect, evidence, engage, advocate, communicate, educate, inform, operate and enable work on land and sea. We have high ambition and high expectations in reaching our goals, we work hard, but we look after our people and ensure that they are supported and positioned with the tools, development and opportunities to thrive.
We need you
Join our team and help us create a Wilder Kent! In return we will inspire you, listen to you, value you, treat you equally and fairly, look after your health and wellbeing and encourage flexibility from day one, enabling you to draw on these benefits to be a better, happier and more productive you.
Join us and make a difference every day.
Useful documents
Benefits of working with us
You can work flexibly from a range of workstations, locations or hot desks within a Trust hub, out in the community with third parties, home working or a combination of these. We recognize both the business benefits and the wider social and environmental benefits of agile working as well as the personal benefits of offering flexible working to support your work life balance.
At Kent Wildlife Trust we have many incredibly important Wildlife and Customer facing roles. Agile working is not always reasonably practical in these roles, however we aim to support flexibility wherever we can and your line manager will open to these conversation from day one of employment.
The application of various elements of agile working will always be subject to business need first and the agreement of any requests to work from home will depend on whether or not the role can be done effectively from a home base in addition to other considerations such as health and safety.
We recognise the importance of fair pay. Finances permitting, there will be a cost of living rise each January equivalent to the rise in the Retail Price Index over the previous 12 months.
Safeguarding your future is important to us. After three months in post, eligible staff will be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme. The Trust will contribute 9% of gross salary provided you contribute a minimum of 4%. You can make your contributions via salary sacrifice or by net monthly salary deductions.
Members of the Trust Pension Scheme are automatically covered by up to twice their annual salary death benefit.
Conservation takes passion and dedication and to do a great job we all need a break once in a while! AT KWT we offer you 23 days annual leave for all new starters which increases by one day for every two full years’ of service, up to a maximum of three extra days (pro rata). Bank Holiday entitlement for full time staff is 8 days per year, (pro-rata for part time staff. This is all complemented by additional days off over Christmas when the main offices are closed.
You also have the option to purchase up to one week of additional annual leave, whereby the value of the additional leave is paid for through a reduction in salary over 12 months of the same annual leave year (or the remaining months of the annual leave year where the holiday is purchased part year).
Enjoy two additional days off each year to support the cause of your choice by volunteering your time.
From time to time you may feel unable to work due to illness. We offer enhanced sick pay and some time off for elective surgery and gender reassignment from day one of employment.
We offer enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption pay and time off for fertility treatment for qualifying employees from day one of employment.
There might also be times when you need some extra flexibility to accommodate your parenting responsibilities so we offer qualifying employees parental leave and shared parental leave opportunities.
Your health and wellbeing is very important to us. At KWT you have a dedicated online resource designed to support you. As well as providing counselling and CBT training, the online portal provides confidential access to wellbeing fact sheets, videos, self-help programmes, interactive tools and educational resources to help with life’s challenges.
At KWT we encourage environmentally friendly travel wherever possible and the Cycle scheme makes cycling to work a reality. Our easy-to-use salary sacrifice initiative allows you to obtain bikes and accessories through us, whilst spreading the cost over 12 months and making savings through tax breaks.
Our Tech scheme lets you get the latest tech through us. You then spread the cost with up to 12 payments from your salary across 12 months and make a National Insurance saving of up to 12% too. Best of all – you own the products from the beginning and there’s no end of hire fee. Enjoy!
Through SpecSavers, KWT shall, if so requested by a user (as defined by HSE), offer an eye and eyesight test to be carried out and may offer either a fixed sum or eyecare voucher towards such a test and any subsequent spectacles prescribed.
We invest in an extensive and considered wellbeing programme throughout the year to support you on your KWT journey. Workshops and webinars on areas such as mindfulness, healthy eating, stress, overwhelm and change are just some of the issues we address. Dynamic topics are given a deep dive when particular issues may rear up.
We actively support your personal learning and development through regular Wildlife Trust training courses. We support your development by funding professional memberships and encouraging you to take external learning opportunities which we will finance.
The Trust recognises that a break can be a good thing for our long-term employees. Therefore, there is an unpaid period of up to three months available for sabbatical leave at the end of each continuous five years worked for the Trust.
Image credit: Chris Couch
Diversity and inclusion
Do you share our values and vision of a Wilder Kent but don’t see an advertised job that fits your exact skill set or experience?
We welcome speculative CV’s from across the conservation sector.
When putting together your application, tap in to our culture and objectives and tailor your CV and cover letter to one of our projects or areas of delivery. There is no guarantee that we have a role for you right now but we are an expanding and dynamic charity always looking for brilliant people who can bring ideas and methods to help us ultimately succeed in our mission to create a Wilder Kent.
Send your application to jobs@wilderkent.org.uk clearly stating that it is a speculative application. If we see something of interest, we may be in touch.
Thank you in advance.
What people who work for us say
From a career in the social enterprise, prison service and the housing industry, Keeley’s first role in conservation has been with Kent Wildlife Trust. It was her friendly, outgoing and extrovert character that made her the perfect choice for a number of people engagement roles within the Trust. She started as the Volunteer Co-ordinator with the Nature’s Sure Connected Project in January 2019 but her talent and leadership skills were quickly recognised and she became our People Engagement Manager shortly afterwards. Jump to March 2021 and she is now Acting Head of People Engagement for a Wilder Kent.
Keeley says, “The people, my colleagues are amazing, I have never worked with a group of professionals who are more open about their trades, they love sharing their knowledge and I love learning about it. I feel like I learn something new every single day and it excites me.
I hear myself talking about eco system engineers, nature based solutions, biodiversity net gain and species reintroduction and I give myself a little clap inside, not just because I am talking about it but because I understand it, I believe in it and I know how proud my mum would be.
We are making a difference, pushing boundaries and challenging perceptions and it’s an amazing feeling to be part of that."
How is Keeley helping to create a Wilder Kent?
I work with a great team making sure we take people with us on our journey, sharing knowledge and helping them to create their own wild spaces. Energising and exciting people to get involved and make a difference.
Rob has always had a passion for wildlife and conservation and his time with The Wildlife Trusts began when he was still studying Environmental Science at the University of Portsmouth. During days off (and sometimes if the lecture looked boring) he also volunteered with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust at Farlington Marshes, and when he was at home he volunteered at Kent Wildlife Trusts Darland Banks and Queendown Warren reserves. The wonderful volunteers really took him under their wing and showed him the ropes.
Once his studies had finished he gained a trainee position with Kent Wildlife Trust covering various reserves around Maidstone. This gave him many new experiences and also the practical qualifications he required going forward to pursue a career in practical conservation, as well as giving him confidence in leading groups of volunteers.
Rob says, “Early on my eyes were opened to the wealth of knowledge at the Trust. Everyone is incredibly supportive and more than happy to share their past experiences and their knowledge. This gave me the springboard I needed to get my first paid job in conservation as a part-time Assistant Warden covering Blue Bell Hill and The Larches. Over the coming years I also managed to pick up other part-time roles at the Trust working with another local organization Bredhurst Woodland Action Group, and a further Assistant Warden role covering the Medway and Maidstone reserves and working under two brilliant wardens. Eventually this led to a full-time assistant role covering the same sites and now I am a full-time Warden, which is made even better by the fact that I am now working on the sites I grew up visiting as a child, and where those volunteers first welcomed me on to the team several years prior.
There have been many changes at the Trust over the years but it still has a family feel, and with the knowledge and passion everyone has we’re always exploring new ideas and ways to do things. I’m always learning something new."
How is Rob helping to create a Wilder Kent?
At the moment I’m working on delivering the exciting new Wilding project at Nashenden Down after our successful appeal during 2020, as well as putting together project bids for some of our other reserves.