Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas

As part of the Development Advice Team, you will will take delegated responsibility for the delivery of Historic England's advice on proposals for change in the historic environment that fall within their area of competence. Applying the ethos of 'constructive conservation' and making effective use of Conservation Principles in all your advisory work, you will provide advice to owners, local authorities and others, to proactively work towards the sustainable management of the historic environment. You will also contribute to specific projects where your expertise would add value, for example as part of the Historic England Places strategy.

We need you to take responsibility for providing Historic England's formal planning and management advice in relation to buildings (both secular and ecclesiastical), and historic areas including assessing proposals, deciding upon that advice (unless the case is more appropriately escalated), and delivering it to agreed timescales and to excellent customer service standards. A key part of this involves working collaboratively with colleagues across teams and where necessary drawing on advice from regional and national specialists.

You will undertake pre-application discussion with potential applicants, including Extended Pre-application advice where appropriate, applying the ethos of 'constructive conservation' to negotiate creative solutions to problems so that proposed changes are sustainable.

Educated to degree level or equivalent in a relevant subject

Broad and extensive experience of managing change to historic buildings and areas, including detailed knowledge of the planning system

Thorough knowledge of secular and ecclesiastical architectural history and the morphology of historic places in England

Thorough knowledge of legislation and planning policy in England, relating to secular and ecclesiastical buildings, historic places and infrastructure

Skills, including written, oral & communication

Adept at negotiation and influencing, Disability Confident
About Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.

We are the public body that looks after England's historic environment. We champion historic places, helping people understand, value and care for them.

Historic England have a fantastic opportunity for you to join us as our Inspector of Historic Buildings and Areas.

This is a Part Time (0.6FTE), Permanent post based in Cambridge with Hybrid working.

We offer a wide benefits package including a competitive pension scheme starting at 28% employer contributions, a generous 28 days holiday, corporate discounts, free entry into English Heritage sites across the country and development opportunities to ensure you achieve your goals.

To view our full range of benefits please follow the link here.

What you will be doing

The Development Advice Teams provide Historic England's statutory and non-statutory advice to our customers, engaging where we add most value to decision-making through our distinctive contribution as national experts. The Development Advice Teams will also work closely with other teams to support communities in looking after historic places and in the advancement of Historic England's objectives., The role requires visiting/inspecting sites which is likely to require climbing scaffolding and negotiating confined spaces (e.g. church roofs).

The role may require occasional attendance at community or planning meetings which are usually held at evenings or weekends.

We are an equal opportunity employer which values diversity and inclusion. If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we would be happy to discuss reasonable adjustments to the job with you. Having just won the Gold Award from MIND, we also recognise the importance of a healthy work-life balance.

We are an inclusive employer and believe that flexible working options are for everyone. We want to make sure our working arrangements don't prevent anyone from joining us because of their personal circumstances. We also want to provide you with the best balance in your home and work life that we can.

We are open to considering options including job sharing, part-time working, compressed hours working and different working locations, including hybrid working. Please visit our jobs pages or contact us to find out more.

Why work for Historic England

We are committed to promoting equality of opportunity for everyone. Diversity helps us to perform better and attract more people to support our work. We welcome and encourage job applications from people of all backgrounds.

We particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic candidates and candidates with disabilities as they are underrepresented within Historic England at this level.

Historic England want all of our candidates to shine in the recruitment process. Please tell us what we can do to make sure you can show us your very best self. You can contact us by email at recruitmentTeam@Historicengland.org.uk if you have any recruitment queries.

At Historic England we use a hiring system called Applied. Applied is a behavioural science-backed recruitment platform that reduces bias, improves quality of hire and increases diversity. We do not use CV application for the majority of our hiring processes. You will answer a selection of questions that allow our hiring teams to test your skills and suitability for the role.

To ensure a fair and inclusive recruitment process for everyone the use of AI or automated tools is not permitted.

Provisional interview dates: Week commencing 13th January 2025