What you’ll be doing:

• Day-to-day management of all members of the chemical contaminants team.
• Complete performance reviews and hold monthly one-to-ones with each team member providing feedback and coaching.
• Supporting the continuous professional and scientific development of your team.
• Project manage and prioritise team members’ workload and outputs, ensuring service delivery and projects are delivered on time and at the appropriate quality standard.
• Ensure that you and all team members are trained in and adhere to the relevant H&S legislation.
• Ensure that all accreditation requirements are met, leading on the quality outputs and quality improvements for the food quality and safety programme.
• Supporting and encouraging innovation in the development of new services and in improving current services.
• Monitor costs of delivery across the services the team provides.
• Identify and deliver improvements in business processes.
• Continuous professional and scientific development of yourself.

What we’re looking for:

You'll either be a scientist with a strong passion for managing people and communication skills to take your career to the next level, or you'll have management skills gained in a science environment with a passion for science. Ideally, you'll have a science degree or equivalent with some experience of people management. You'll have some of the following skills:

• Experience of working within collaborative science teams
• Experience of functional management of scientists
• Project management / service delivery management
• Experience of delivery under quality management systems (e.g. ISO 9001 and ISO17025)
• Practical IT skills in software packages such as Microsoft Word and Excel.

• Effective organisational skills and ability to prioritise work to meet deadlines and targets.
• Flexible and adaptable approach to work with attention to detail.
• Ability to influence and be persuasive.
• Proven ability to interpret and analyse performance data and reports to enhance the effectiveness of the team.
• Clearly demonstrates an ability to develop rapport with peers, team members and senior management.
• Confident and effective communicator.
• Ability to influence, coach and provide support to facilitate successful delivery of the agreed solutions.
• Demonstrate good meeting discipline, time management and action planning.

About Fera

At Fera, we're making the world a better, healthier and safer place. We're a joint venture partnership between Capita and Defra and we're working proactively to protect the world we live in and the food we eat. Fera is a national and international centre of excellence for interdisciplinary investigation and problem solving across plant and bee health, crop protection, sustainable agriculture, food and feed quality and chemical safety in the environment. Join us and contribute to delivering world-class science for the future.
Fera are part of Capita Plc, a leading UK provider of technology enabled business services. We're supporting and improving the lives of millions of people every day and we can only do this with the right people in place, working towards a shared goal. We encourage an open, honest working environment where everyone can be true to themselves and people are valued for their differences. We're always challenging each other to learn and improve, because we know when we work together, we can deliver better outcomes. We work across such a huge range of businesses and sectors, that you'll have the opportunity to grow and develop your career in any number of directions.

What’s in it for you?

• A competitive basic salary
• 23 days’ holiday (rising to 27) with the opportunity to buy extra leave
• The opportunity to take a paid day out of the office, volunteering for our charity partners or a cause of your choice
• Ample training opportunities
• Company matched pension, life assurance, a cycle2work scheme, 15 weeks’ fully paid maternity, adoption and shared parental leave, paternity pay of two weeks…and plenty more
• Voluntary benefits designed to suit your lifestyle – from discounts on retail and socialising, to health & wellbeing, travel and technology
• Access to our Employee Network Groups, which represent every strand of diversity and allow colleagues to connect and learn from each other on an open, inclusive platform

You’ll get the chance to follow your chosen career path anywhere in Capita. You’ll be joining a network of 63,000 experienced, innovative and dedicated individuals across multiple disciplines and sectors. There are countless opportunities to learn new skills and develop in your career, and we’ll provide the support you need to do just that. Our purpose is to create a better outcome for you.

What we hope you’ll do next:

Choose ‘Apply now’ to fill out our short application and please high light your team preference / science discipline. 

We’re an equal opportunity employer, which means we’ll consider all suitably qualified applicants regardless of gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or beliefs, age, sexual orientation, disability status or any other protected characteristic. We recruit and develop our people based on merit and their passion for creating better outcomes, and we’re committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.