About Us
The City of London Corporation manages 11,000 acres of land in and around London, welcoming millions of visitors annually. The North London Open Spaces (NLOS) section oversees c. 1,000 acres of that portfolio and includes some of the UK's most iconic urban greenspaces, including:
- Hampstead Heath (including Golders Hill Park, Parliament Hill Fields, and Heath Extension)
- Highgate Wood
- Queen’s Park
- West Ham Park
These beloved green spaces boast spectacular landscapes and vistas, ancient woodland, diverse wildlife, world class sporting and athletics facilities, and heritage assets. We work closely with local communities and stakeholders to preserve and enhance these natural assets, helping to make London one of the most liveable large cities in the world.
About the Role
This is a rare opportunity to take a senior leadership role at North London Open Spaces, and directly contribute to and make a meaningful impact in the conservation and protection of these cherished green spaces.
As a member of the senior management team, the successful candidate will serve as the primary subject matter expert at NLOS for nature conservation, conceiving and leading on initiatives, advising colleagues, and working collaboratively both internally and externally. They will have responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day management of most of Hampstead Heath and all of Highgate Wood, and will also oversee a number of services that function across and support the four open spaces (eg, arboriculture and tree management, waste and recycling, conservation, and ecology).
For the better performance of their duties, the Head of Conservation will be required to reside in accommodation that is provided on site and will be scheduled onto an on-call and duty manager rota with other colleagues.
Key Responsibilities
- Serve as the primary subject matter expert for nature conservation at Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood, Queen’s Park, and West Ham Park
- Oversee the day-to-day management of Highgate Wood and most of Hampstead Heath
- Oversee arboriculture / tree management, waste management, conservation, habitat creation/restoration and management, wildlife management, water body management, and climate change adaptation across North London Open Spaces
- Lead and motivate a team of 25-30 multi-skilled professionals committed to the conservation of these four sites
- Ensure compliance with all applicable legislation, including environmental protection, climate change, nature recovery, wildlife protection, flood risk management, and health and safety.
About You
We are looking for a high-energy and innovative leader with a strong background in nature conservation, open space management, and team leadership.
The successful candidate will bring:
- Demonstrable experience in managing complex public open spaces.
- Comprehensive experience developing and delivering biodiversity and land management programmes and projects in a range of habitats, ideally within an urban setting.
- Significant experience managing complex conservation work and projects across varied landscapes
- Significant knowledge of biodiversity and wildlife management, including land and water management.
- Strong experience managing a diverse team of professionals in an operational environment.
- Experience of implementing legislation and policy relevant to biodiversity conservation, planning guidance, and site designation for wildlife conservation and species status designations.
- A highly creative, entrepreneurial and ‘can do’ approach to problem solving, with the ability to remain resilient in the face of challenges.
- Strong quantitative skills and comfort interrogating and analysing data and budgets.
Why Join Us?
- Opportunity to join a prestigious organisation that protects some of London’s most treasured landscapes.
- Lead through a high-impact role with the opportunity to shape the future of these iconic spaces.
- Work within a supportive and collaborative team that is committed to conservation and community engagement.
- Work across multiple iconic sites.
- Competitive salary and benefits package.
How to Apply
If you are excited about the opportunity to play a pivotal role in preserving and enhancing London’s most cherished green spaces, we’d love to hear from you.
Provisional Interview dates: W/C 6th October & 13th October 2025
Closing date: 12 Noon on Monday 22nd September 2025
To apply please click the Apply button.
The City of London Corporation is committed to Equal Opportunities and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.
We reserve the right to close the advert earlier should we receive a high number of applications.
Because our roles are so varied, we don’t have a ‘one size fits all’ policy for workplace attendance. How many days a week you’ll be required to attend your workplace will depend on the requirements of your role. It’s important that you understand the requirements before applying to ensure you are able to meet them. We are committed to considering requests to work flexibly and job share. Requests will be considered by the recruiting manager in line with our policies and business needs.
For more information on our categories for workplace attendance, please view our guide.
We will be reviewing this policy and approach at regular intervals to ensure we’re meeting our attendance needs.
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People and culture at Unifrog
As a People team, we help foster a supportive culture by: trusting our team; removing roadblocks and encouraging autonomy; making an effort to understand everyone’s different wants and needs and using that information to tailor what we offer; and caring about each team member and creating processes that allow them to work at their best. If this fits with your view of what a People team should do, we’d love to hear from you.
What you’ll do
1. Internal communications (~2.5 days per week)
As our Internal Communications and Events Lead, you will play a key role in engaging, informing, and inspiring our team with what’s happening at Unifrog. You’ll also help us to work even better together, and to retain a happy and effective team.
Your main responsibilities:
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Coordinate our whole team commss
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Deliver our internal comms strategy, work towards our People team goal and objectives, and use our House Style.
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Create our monthly internal Unifrog newsletter, writing your own segments, editing other people’s contributions, and evaluating engagement.
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Collate data from team surveys and work with the People and Leadership teams to put ideas from the team into action.
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Improve the way that we communicate and work together:
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Share best practice and deliver training on our comms tools (e.g. Slack, Gmail, Asana).
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Research, trial and introduce new comms tools or upgrades where appropriate, training the team on how to use them.
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Join our AI working group, whose goal is to support the team to use AI more effectively (e.g. leading training, sharing use-cases from across Unifrog).
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Support teams with communication challenges (e.g. streamlining comms traffic).
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Support team members to easily find the best contact for different questions and tasks.
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Manage our existing comms tools:
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Audit our usage and budget to make sure we’re maximising value.
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Manage individual and team subscriptions to our comms tools.
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Help to troubleshoot team questions and issues.
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Keep our ‘Unifrog Essentials’ and ‘Who to Contact’ documents up-to-date, and support team leads to keep our Dropbox folders organised.
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Work with our Recruitment Lead and Marketing team to shout externally about what’s going on at Unifrog, sharing photos and stories on our website and social media.
2. Internal events (~2.5 days per week)
Now that Unifrog has 115 team members across the UK and beyond, it’s more important than ever that everyone feels connected, both to each other and to our wider mission.
We currently have:
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Three whole company “team days” per year (2x in person, 1x virtual)
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Two “away days” per team per year (in person)
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Regular socials at our London office
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Regular remote socials
Your main responsibilities:
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Plan our whole company team days:
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Work closely with our CEO and the Leadership team to decide on the team day agenda, budget and format.
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Find and book venues, hotels, social activities, and meals, and make sure everything’s set up and runs smoothly on the day.
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Support senior managers to plan their away days:
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Advise on agendas and book venues, socials, and training.
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Facilitate cross-team collaboration (one of each team’s away days is partly combined with another team).
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Evaluate our team events and continually look to improve their quality, impact, and inclusivity.
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Plan remote socials and office socials for our London HQ.
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Support our Unifrog affinity groups - spaces where team members who share common identities (e.g. being parents), can connect, support each other and champion inclusivity.
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Keep our EDI calendar up-to-date, and mark and celebrate occasions important to people across the team, including cultural heritage months, awareness days, and commemorative events.
Working together
You’ll be part of our People team alongside our: People Assistant, People Coordinator Recruitment Lead, People Lead, Head of People Operations, and People and Operations Director (your line manager).
You’ll also regularly work with a variety of other team members (especially line managers) when organising events.
What we’re looking for
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Experience in planning and delivering events (including virtual events).
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Experience in supporting team members to communicate and use comms tools more effectively.
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Ideally, experience in delivering whole company comms.
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Strong verbal communication and presentation skills.
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Excellent writing and proof-reading skills.
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Ability to craft clear and powerful narratives from data and insights.
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Personable and able to build great professional relationships.
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Keen attention to detail.
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Excellent organisation skills.
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An interest in education, careers, and development.
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Ideally, knowledge of emerging trends in internal communications.
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Proactive attitude and willingness to get stuck in.
You will be joining a team of highly motivated people who are passionate about our mission of helping students to find the best next step for them after school. If this excites you and you’re an energetic person who is willing to learn, then we’d love to hear from you.
Benefits
Head to our jobs page for a full list of the excellent benefits we offer our team.
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Join one of Escape the City’s top 1% employers and help transform careers and destinations in schools.
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Become part of a committed, dynamic, and growing company. We want to build our team for the long term: if you do well, we will do our best to make sure you want to stay at the company for a long time.
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Professional development is important at Unifrog. You will define your own 6-month objectives and will be supported by your line manager and the rest of the team to achieve them. You will have an annual training allowance to spend on what you need to grow and progress.
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Influence the company’s direction: we love to promote great ideas, wherever they come from.
Key details
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£37,000 - £39,000 per year, depending on experience. Grade B.
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Full-time.
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Split your time between working remotely and at our office in Hoxton, London (a minimum of 2 days per week). Applicants must be commutable to London and can expense up to £12.50 per day for travel, up to 2 days per week.
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28 days paid holiday per year (plus bank holidays).
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Working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Thursday, and 9am to 4:30pm on Friday.
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Start date: as soon as possible, though we will be flexible for the right candidates.
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If you require reasonable adjustments, or want to discuss any details about the role before applying please contact Mhairi (contact details on our jobs page).
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We can only consider candidates who have the right to work in the UK.
Application process
Deadline: 10:00am (BST) on Friday 3rd October 2025.
Stage 1: Application form (~1 hour)
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Visit our website to upload your CV and complete the questions and tasks below. Please note that we do not review CVs at this stage of the application process so please be as specific as possible about your experience.
i. With reference to examples of your recent experience, what would make you an excellent candidate for this role? (250 words)
ii. Tell us about an event you’ve organised (in person or virtual). How did you make the event a success, and what did you learn for the next event? (250 words)
iii. October is Black History Month (BHM). Write a draft Slack post on our #social channel that: a) gives a short intro to BHM; and b) shares ideas and plans for how people can mark the occasion, learn more, and get involved. (250 words)
We want to see your creativity and individual tone of voice come through in this task. We understand that some candidates may want to use AI to improve their answers, however it's possible this may take away from the individuality of your task and impact your score.
You can write your Slack post directly in the box provided. If you'd like to include emojis or embedded links, please share a Google Doc link instead, ensuring you have set access permissions to “anyone with the link can view”.
Stage 2: Task stage (15 minutes)
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The next stage of the application process will be a short phone interview. We’ll send you instructions if you are successful in the first application stage.
Stage 3: Video call interview (1 hour)
- Standard Q&A from a panel of three, including questions about your experiences and how these relate to the role, and scenario questions based on common situations you might face (plus time for your questions).
Phone interviews will be held throughout the application window. Video call interviews will be held w/c 13th October 2025.
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