Job Introduction
We are Forestry England.
We live and breathe forests.
Job title – Works Supervisor - Thetford
Salary - £30,105 per annum
Contract type – Permanent
Hours –37 hours per week
Vacancy closes - 14th July 2026, 23:58
Join us. We're foresters, professionals and experts. We are a passionate team who love to share our enthusiasm and want to make a positive difference for you and the environment.
Together, we’re using our scale and expertise to grow the nation’s forests for everyone. We’re already adapting our landscapes for tomorrow, and getting stuff done today, like creating amazing places and experiences for you to enjoy. We're providing vital homes for wildlife, making our air cleaner to breathe and producing sustainable timber.
What you’ll do…
As a Beat Works Supervisor in Thetford Forest, you will play a key role in ensuring the safe and effective delivery of forest operations that protect the forest, produce timber, establish restocking, maintain SSSI/SPA habitats for rare Breckland fauna and flora, safeguard our unique heritage, and provide extensive public access.
At Thetford Forest, we work at a landscape scale. The 20,000 hectare forest is divided into four beats, each contributing to approximately 85,000m³ typical annual timber production and a planting programme of up to 1million trees a year. Each beat has a small team managed by a Forester.
You will be the Work Supervisor in Thetford East Beat, using your forestry knowledge and experience to support the Forester in planning and organising large-scale, wide-ranging beat programmes, including harvesting, restocking, vegetation management and hazardous tree work. These programmes are delivered by Beat Craftspeople and contractors; your understanding of operational forestry will ensure their work meets UKFS, UKWAS and FISA standards.
Please see attached Job Description for further information.
Where you’ll work…
This post is based at the Santon Downham Office near Brandon, Suffolk (IP27 0TJ).
You can expect to spend part of your time in the office, but you must also be prepared to work outdoors in all seasons and be able to walk across rough ground.
The standard working pattern is 37 hours per week (7am Monday to Friday), although flexibility is required to meet operational needs, including occasional out-of-hours and on-call working.
Sometimes meetings and training events will take place elsewhere in the country, which may require overnight stay
Benefits…
Alongside your salary, Forestry England contributes an average of 28.97% towards your pension. You will become a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension Scheme.
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25 days holiday a year, raising by one day every year’s service, up to 30 days (pro-rated for part time employees) plus additional days off such as bank holidays.
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STaR is our employee benefits scheme offering discounts on everyday supermarket shopping, as well as other things such as hotel stays clothes, mobile phones, other electrical items, medical and car insurance, holidays, gym discounts, household bills, Headspace wellbeing app.
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free parking at Forestry England sites and free entry to our National Arboretums at Westonbirt and Bedgebury.
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a commitment to lifelong learning through career development. Forestry England will support your career development in a variety of ways, including continual professional development, support for individual learning plans and sponsored membership of professional bodies.
Read more about the benefits on the Forestry England website.
How to apply…
You will be asked to write a 200 word statement on your relevant experience and career history, along with a personal statement of no more than 500 words. You will be assessed on both during sifting. More details about how to apply are listed on the application form.
You will be assessed on behaviours, experience and strength based questions during your interview.
The Behaviours being assessed at interview are –
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Seeing the big picture
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Managing a quality service
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Communicating and Influencing
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Delivering at pace
Interviews will be held at Santon Downham (IP27 0TJ) and may include tests of forestry experience and knowledge.
Successful candidates will undergo a criminal record check and the government baseline personnel security standard check.
If you require any reasonable adjustments, please email [email protected].
If you're planning to use AI to support your application, please ensure you've read our guidelines here first.
Read more about our application process and working with us on the Forestry England website.
Nationality requirements…
Read more about nationality requirements here.
Working for the Civil Service…
Forestry England is part of the Civil Service. The Civil Service has a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). This means candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria during the application process will be guaranteed an interview. We also offer a Redeployment Interview Scheme to current civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the role. This role is also part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans and Prison Leaver Recruitment initiative.
Within Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016, it is essential that applicants should have the ability to provide conversation in accurate spoken English.
Our recruitment process makes appointments based on fair and open competition and merit, as outlined in the Civil Service Commissioners’ Recruitment Principles. If you feel your application has not been treated in in line with/according to these principles and you wish to make a complaint, please email: [email protected].
