Senior Marine Environmental Consultant - Marine Mammals (SE03.26.MH)

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Location: SAMS, Oban

Contract Type: Fixed Term - 24 months in the first instance

Working Pattern: Full Time - 37 hours per week - Monday to Friday

Closing date: 15 June 2026

This role is to provide environmental consultancy leadership within the SAMS Enterprise delivery team, specifically within the Marine Energy core strategic area.

Responsibilities:

1. Lead technical development of products and services for commercial work in Marine Mammals consultancy, advising and working with SAMS Enterprise Senior Management Team and Strategic Working Groups to improve, resource and deliver to market needs.
2. Technical delivery: implementation of state-of-the-art acoustic automated processing, database management and data visualisation.
3. Income generation, working with the business development team to develop and realise new opportunities in this sector.

This is a key high level technical position to develop and deliver high quality consultancy services to industry and regulators, ensuring projects are delivered effectively to time, cost and quality as per the agreed contractual requirements and to the ISO9001 standard.

Our Ideal Candidate

We are looking for a highly motivated consultant with an enthusiasm for the study and conservation of the marine environment. Demonstrable experience (e.g PhD or Masters preferable, consultancy experience essential) related to marine mammals, bio acoustics and/or species distribution/statistical modelling is essential. You should be experienced in the development and delivery of commercial contracts, be able to work collaboratively as part of a small team and communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders including regulators, industry and colleagues.

You will have a strong background in the collection and analysis of long term passive acoustic (using static, drifting and/or towed hydrophones) data. In addition, skills in species distribution and habitat modelling, as well as proficiency in standard programming languages are sought (e.g., R, Python or MATLAB). Experience of visual data analysis (photo ID, focal follow, line transect surveys) would be valuable. Awareness of UK and Scottish marine environmental regulatory processes in relation to MPAs as well as marine industry (e.g., fisheries, marine energy and aquaculture) monitoring and management is required.

Employee Benefits

We are proud to provide a wide variety of benefits year round, offering options to best support our staff, such as:

• Flexible & hybrid working options
• Purchase of additional annual leave
• Shopping discounts
• Cycle 2 Work scheme
• Purchases of technology through salary sacrifice
• Payroll Giving
• Pensions Plus
• Access to portals to support health and wellbeing
• A sabbatical scheme
• Free car parking with access to electronic charging points
• Access to a number of training & development courses

We are a Disability Confident Employer. Where a candidate requires reasonable adjustments as part of the application process, we encourage you to let us know. Where applicants with a disability meet the essential criteria for the job, you will be given the opportunity to demonstrate your skills, talent and abilities at interview.

SAMS' commitment to gender equality has been recognised, as our institute was presented with an Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) Bronze Award and is currently working towards Investors in Diversity accreditation.

SAMS Group is committed to being an equal and open organisation. Diversity and inclusion are important to us, and we strive to remove any barriers that may prevent people from applying to join us. We encourage applications from all backgrounds, and from all who share our values and can help us to broaden our knowledge and range of ideas.