Job Summary
We’re looking for an exceptional Marine Applications Senior Scientist to help us make a difference to our planet, by contributing to a portfolio of scientific projects enabling industry customers to use science to understand the impact of weather and climate on their marine operations and to improve their decision-making.
Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we try and accommodate a working arrangement to suit everyone – some are mostly in the office, some are mostly from home, while others work a hybrid pattern in between – and we come together for regular team days to make the most of our time together. As a minimum, you will be required to travel to Exeter HQ approximately once per month, plus there may be occasional travel required for meetings, training, workshops and conferences.
Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work a minimum of 3 days per week/23 hours per week and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a job share.
Who we are:
We are the Met Office, the National Meteorological Service for the UK. We provide critical weather services and world-leading climate science to deliver extraordinary impact and benefit across the globe. Our work helps people make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.
The Industry Science and Consultancy area is made up of a mix of Scientists, Scientific Consultants and Scientific Software Engineers with a range of backgrounds and different academic/career experiences – we do not all come in with a meteorology/oceanography background, but we do all share a passion for taking weather and climate information and making is useful, usable and used.
As both individuals and teams, we provide high quality, impactful outputs, whilst ensuring we work together in a positive, collaborative and supportive way; understanding we all have lives and responsibilities beyond our jobs, respecting each other, benefitting from our differences and building both on both our own and others’ skills to progress as a team and in our own careers.
The focus of the Industry Science and Consultancy area is to innovatively employ our world-leading weather and climate science is to ensure our customers are able to make the best possible use of meteorological and oceanographic (‘metocean’) information in their decision-making. At the heart of this is our Marine Applications team, working with our customers to develop and deliver innovative science and actionable insight/information to make offshore industry operations more safe, efficient and successful.
Together:
- We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
- We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
- We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making
- We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater
- We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers
Find out more about our values - https://bit.ly/3fokaRD
Job Description
Job Purpose:
If successful, you will gain an excellent understanding of how meteorological and oceanographic information is used by industry, complementing this with your relevant scientific background and relationship management skills to develop, win and deliver projects that help both ensure the security of the energy supply and enable a transition to Net Zero. You will be part of a team of scientists and scientific consultants, working closely with our business colleagues (and collaboratively with the wider organisation) to lean on specialist skills and ensure the latest pioneering science is being exploited to the benefit of our customers.
To give you a feel for the work, some recent examples of types of projects undertaken by members across the team include:
- Researching and evaluating new machine learning techniques to improve wave, current and storm surge predictions.
- Supporting and evolving the next generation of offshore industry standards and best practices for use of metocean data.
- Trialling and exploring the application of longer-range forecasting capabilities to facilitate earlier planning decisions.
- Undertaking climate assessments to help renewable energy operators understand and quantify the impacts of past and projected changes on offshore wind resource.
- Producing weather windows, downtime analyses and extreme value statistics to support the design, installation, operations & maintenance and decommissioning phases of offshore energy projects.
Your job will encompass a range of activities, combining project-based consultancy and the development of operational post-processing capability, all of which apply your core scientific and technical skills to make tomorrow better than today for our customers: building trusted relationships to aid the identification of their needs, drivers and decision-making processes, helping recognise how metocean weather and climate information can support these, and producing high-quality, user-orientated, solutions that have extraordinary impact and benefit.
You could be involved at all stages of projects, including understanding the opportunity; supporting the writing of bids and proposals; undertaking scientific analysis by researching and coding new methods and systems to tailor the use metocean weather and climate data more efficiently/effectively; and providing information through a variety of methods such as reports, presentations, and training sessions, as well as via real-time operational products and services.
Throughout, you will work effectively as part of a team with colleagues and customers to ensure projects are delivered and fully meet requirements, whilst proactively building on your experience and developing new skills for your future career.
Person specification
Essential Qualifications, Skills & Abilities:
If you are unsure on where your skills and experience sit between Foundation Scientist (alternative advert), Scientist (alternative advert) and Senior Scientist (this advert) then apply to more than one advert and you will then be assessed against each of the relevant sets of criteria, as we are unable to transfer your application to a level to which you did not apply (even if this is a better fit for your experience).
Although these criteria are essential to the role, we appreciate everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and encourage applicants to apply even if they consider one or two areas may be slightly weaker than others.
- Experience and knowledge in physical oceanography or a related quantitative scientific discipline at graduate or equivalent level, plus are an established applied scientist or metocean engineer/consultant.
- Demonstrable experience of leading, developing and conducting a range of projects on the application of scientific and analytical methods to solve applied research problems.
- Strong scientific computing skills (e.g. in Python) and demonstrable experience of writing and modifying complex code and producing high-quality analyses using appropriate quality assurance tools and processes.
- Evidence of developing valuable relationships and building credibility with customers, stakeholders, collaborators and colleagues to be able to leverage these to propose, scope and deliver projects.
- Excellent communication skills (written, oral, presentation and listening) with the ability to elicit user needs and translate complex scientific and technical information to a range of audience, providing well-informed advice.
- An independent thinker, able to contribute to and lead the definition of projects, recognising the potential for scientific investigations and proactively take initiative to problem-solve and turn broadly defined concepts or questions into high-quality scientific outputs that meet user needs.
- An effective team player with the ability to work and collaborate as an active and productive member of a multi-disciplinary team to deliver projects, and experience of leading and developing colleagues.
The Met Office is accredited as a 'Great Place to Work UK 2023' and in addition has achieved a place on both the UK's 'Best Workplaces in Tech' and 'Best Workplaces for Women' lists.
We invest in our people to unlock their full potential. As our Marine Applications Senior Scientist, we will support you to develop and thrive to be the best you can be. We champion positive physical and mental health in the workplace and are committed to being an inclusive organisation, providing a working culture that actively values an equal and diverse workforce.
As our Marine Applications Senior Scientist, your starting salary will be £38838.00. New joiners to the Met Office will start on the salary band minimum. Our 2022-25 pay award means the salary will increase to £41725.00 from 1st April 2024, and you will be able to progress towards £45257.00 over time.
Your total reward package is potentially worth up to £59757.00 annually, which includes basic salary, potential corporate bonus and employer pension contributions.
Your package includes:
- Outstanding Civil Service Pension
- Flexible hours and homeworking
- Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave
- Cycle to work scheme for the purchase of a bicycle and equipment to support healthy, low carbon travel
- Access to discounted shopping, inclusive of retail, leisure and lifestyle brands
Selection process details
If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you. Apply below using your CV and Cover Letter/Supporting Statement (which must address how you meet each of the essential criteria in turn).
In your answers, we are looking for responses that convey both your breadth of experience and specific detail of cases.
When giving examples, we recommend following the CARL (Context, Action, Result and Learning) approach to ensure that they are structured, specific and clearly demonstrate what you did and how this corresponds to the criteria. More information on the approach can be found online.
Closing date 20/11/2023 at 23:59 with interviews commencing from 14/11/2023. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed. Our interviews are taking place remotely via Microsoft Teams.
If successful, please note we are unable to offer expenses for travel to your normal place of work. This post is contractually aligned to Exeter HQ, please ask at interview if you would like extra clarity on how often this requirement is likely to be.
How we can help:
If you have any questions about the job please do ask, we’re happy to answer any questions prospective applicants may have about the role, flexible/part-time/hybrid working options, start dates, the culture or the team or anything else.
If you are considering applying and need support to do so, please contact us via askHR@metoffice.gov.uk . You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.
We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.
We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window) . See our vetting charter (opens in a new window) .
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality Requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window) .
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job contact :
- Name : askHR@metoffice.gov.uk
- Email : askHR@metoffice.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : askHR@metoffice.gov.uk