Earth Observation Specialist

The Rural Payments Agency (RPA) is an executive agency of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), delivering over £2 billion in payments to farmers, traders and landowners each year.

We are an Operational Delivery Profession organisation, with the majority of our people delivering day to day services to our customers and stakeholders.

We make excellent delivery happen, empowering agricultural and rural communities to create a better place to live. We manage over 40 schemes, and also make payments on behalf of Natural England, to ensure we have a healthy rural economy, strong and sustainable rural communities, and to protect and enhance the natural environment.

Our vision is to create a great place for people living in this country. We have developed a set of four strategic objectives covering our policy outcomes and corporate objectives. These objectives help us to deliver our ambitious vision to build our green and healthy future and provide a framework for all of the important work that we carry out.

Further information can be found on the Rural Payments Agency website: RPA Website

As an HEO Earth Observation Specialist, you will be part of the Geospatial Team within the RPA, responsible for overseeing and delivering a range of geomatics capabilities. These include earth observation, the geospatial data supply chain, machine learning, spatial analytics, and designing enterprise geospatial information products and solutions. You will use advanced technology and data for surveillance, geo-intelligence gathering, and mapping of the natural environment and rural landscapes.

This is an exceptional opportunity for an Earth Observation Specialist with strong technical knowledge of data science concepts and a passion for working in a fast-paced, dynamic, and motivated team. Successful candidates will have the chance to develop and grow their skills within a geo-centric organisation.

In this role, you will further develop and exploit data from airborne platforms and remote sensing satellites, contributing to strategic environmental programmes and business-critical initiatives within central government. You will collaborate with our existing team to advance remote sensing and machine learning capabilities that have already been embedded into our operational processes. You will gain experience working with various teams across the agency and broader government, delivering projects, collaborating with our supply chain, and working within an exciting, fast-growing business area.

Earth observation is a growing field within the RPA. You will create deep learning algorithms to train models that produce markers for key actions and events, such as identifying bare soil, mowing, and harvesting, as well as fulfilling regulatory obligations related to hedgerows. Utilising high-resolution, high-frequency satellite imagery and aerial photography, you will develop these markers and apply them at scale across England, transforming how our field teams work with customers to maximise the benefits of their agreements.

As you progress, you will lead innovation efforts around the platforming of land data and intelligence, integrating it with systems within the RPA and across government departments. Your focus will be on driving environmental recovery and ensuring food and biosecurity. You will also develop new markers to broaden the scope of remote monitoring for schemes and help deliver a large-scale monitoring capability to assess strategic outcomes and policy directions.