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Salary: £33,242 - £37,064
Contractual Hours: 35 hours per week
Basis: Permanent
Workplace category: Workplace based
Attachments: Job Information Pack
Covering over 6,000 acres, this ancient Forest grazed wood-pasture, together with 1,700 acres of rural farmed estate (the Buffer Lands Estate), stretches 12 miles from Manor Park in East London to just north of Epping in Essex. Epping Forest is of national and international conservation importance with two thirds of its area designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC). It is also surrounded by a special historic landscape including other protected sites, such as the Grade II* Registered Park and Garden of Copped Hall.
Grazing is an essential element of the management of these designated sites.
Epping Forest, with 13 million visits per year is also London’s 5th most visited free attraction and the largest public open space in the London area.
This is a great opportunity to play a key role in the development of the current large pedigree breeding herd of English Longhorns for projects, including carbon sequestration/storage and biodiversity gain. The herd ensures extensive grazing in one of England’s most prestigious conservation sites with new and expanded areas of grazing planned over the next 5 years under a recently updated and Trustee-approved Grazing Action Plan.
Grazing is carried out in this public open space using fenceless (virtual) grazing technology for which the Forest was the UK pioneer. The most up-to-date GPS system is now employed for all-year round grazing across multiple sites alongside traditional fenced areas and these would be your responsibilities to maintain day-to-day. You will also lead the winter calving operation. In addition, you will ensure other vital infrastructure is in good working order at all times. During your daily work at sites you will liaise with visitors to the Forest and dynamically manage the interactions between the public and the grazing operations to ensure visitor safety and animal welfare, including the ‘Five Freedoms’.
Hard-working and motivated by nature and landscape conservation, as well as enthusiasm for managing cattle, you will bring to the role proven practical knowledge of cattle management and breeding herd development. As part of the Conservation Section Team, you will be responsible for keeping the annual Forest Grazing Programme in the SSSI/SAC sites on track. You will also ensure scheme-compliant and flexible grazing management of all other grasslands covered by agri-environment grants.
This is a full-time and residential appointment. You will be provided with a 3- bed lodge on the Forest for the better performance of your duties. In managing the Longhorn herd and overseeing the day-to-day site management alternate weekend working will be required with 3.5 hours on each second Saturday and Sunday followed by a full week-day off in the following week. The Sat and Sunday working will attract unsocial hours payments as detailed above. As a residential employee you will be part of a team on-call for 1 week every 6 weeks.
Working from the Warren Offices Loughton and in winter, also based at the Great Gregories Yard cattle facility, you will travel around the Forest, Buffer Lands Estate and surrounding areas.
For an informal chat please contact John Phillips on 020 8532 5337.
Closing date: 12 noon on 19 November 2025
Interviews will be held on 26 November 2025
To apply online please click the Apply online button below.
Alternatively, please contact 020 7332 3978 (24 hr answerphone) quoting reference number OENV898 if you experience any difficulties. A minicom service for the hearing impaired is available on 020 7332 3732.
If this role is advertised as a secondment, secondments are subject to the agreement of your department releasing you, therefore, you need to discuss this with your line manager prior to applying. The purpose of this will be to discuss what, if any, impact your secondment might have on the service and service delivery should your application be successful, and how this might be addressed.
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 here.
We will be reviewing this policy and approach at regular intervals to ensure we’re meeting our attendance needs.
The City of London Corporation is currently undergoing a programme to ensure that our pay and reward practices are competitive and equitable across the whole organisation, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive in the work that we do.