Junior Geospatial Specialist

These roles, which sit within Operations Division at the UK Hydrographic Office, are being advertised as development roles, where successful candidates will undertake a comprehensive training and development programme, which could include gaining experience in more than one team, to provide a strong foundation for your future career and some breadth of understanding of work in Operations.  Confirmation of temporary promotion to B3/EO and subsequent substantive promotion to the B3/EO grade will be evidence based – incorporating both Civil Service expected Behaviours for the grade and technical competence and subject to approval by a review panel.  The time it will take to reach temporary and substantive promotion will vary between individuals and be dependent on achieving competency/behaviours milestones that will be defined and evidenced in a development passport.

In these roles you will be directly involved in the flowline for the delivery of services or products for customers; whose safety at sea relies on the accuracy and timeliness of the information the UK Hydrographic Office provides. Within these roles, and as you progress, you will develop a number of these analytical and geospatial skills:

› Geospatial Data Analysis & Manipulation

› Geospatial Data Management

› Geospatial Data Standards and Quality

› Cartography and Interactive mapping

› Geospatial Tools, Software and systems

You will have the opportunity, in whichever teams you are assigned to, to work alongside and learn from subject matter experts in fields such as geospatial data management, GIS, data standards, hydrography, cartography, and navigation.  You will also have the experience of working in a modern, flexible and supportive working environment with great benefits, alongside colleagues who are passionate about what we deliver for our customers. 

Please note, we are currently planning cohort starts for April 2024 and late Summer 2024 – numbers on each will be dependent on business need the availability of successful candidates.

Our teams across Operations work in different ways, depending on the ways of working of the team and customer needs.  Some Teams, due to the nature of their work, require team members to attend the office in Taunton daily, whilst others can support a more hybrid work pattern. As a default this would be a balance of 3 days in the office for full time staff.  

There will be introductory classroom training for these roles which will be onsite at our office in Taunton.   This will be for a minimum of 2 weeks but could be up to 10 weeks depending on the team you are allocated to.

[Please note our Policy on informal hybrid working (arrangements available as agreed with the line manager) does not extend to working overseas].

These roles support the acquisition, analysis and management of hydrographic and marine information and subsequent processing into navigational products and services. 

Following introductory training, you will work within a team of approximately 10 – 12 staff of differing levels of experience and will be mentored on the job.  GIS and other bespoke software and databases are used in all roles, so you will build hands-on, practical experience.

Day-to-day activities include database management, using GIS based production systems to complete rules-based editing of UKHO geospatial products, data sourcing, data capture and distribution and quality checking.  Other tasks may include managing and maintaining records, archival research and job preparation.

As you progress through your development, and depending on your team, examples of day to day tasks are as follows:

• Interpret and assess a full range of incoming analogue and digital data against product masters, databases and services and recommend subsequent actions.
• Assess impact of complex source data on databases and update accordingly.
• Update and deconflict data in databases from new and historical sources.
• Produce ENCs as a result of changes to the database.
• Compile Submarine bathymetric ENCs.
• Maintain authoritative, feature specific master data layers.
• Produce specialist analogue and digital products in support of RN deployments. 

Please note that we will only score against the sift and interview criteria and not the information below.

If you have a real interest in building geospatial skills and experience within an Organisation that is responsible for providing all users of marine/hydrographic information with the data, products and services they need to make effective decisions, then this could be the right opportunity for you. 

If you are a supportive team player, who has great attention to detail and the ability to work at pace to meet the needs of our customers worldwide, then we would love to hear from you. 

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Making Effective Decisions
• Delivering at Pace

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Understanding/awareness of the uses of geospatial information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
• Good attention to detail

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Understanding/awareness of the uses of geospatial information and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

At the UK Hydrographic Office, it’s very important to us that our people feel valued. 

We offer a huge range of benefits such as training and development, well-being support, flexible/ homeworking, a fantastic state of the art building, high spec equipment, and so much more. 

See our attached Candidate Pack for more details.

Job contact :

• Name : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk
• Email : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : recruitment.queries@ukho.gov.uk