Description Science and Technology Facilities Council Salary: £31,418 per annum £1,000 welcome bonus Contract Type: Permanent Hours: Full-time Location: Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Harwell, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX Closing date: 19th October 2025 Assessment Centre: December 2025 / January 2026 Start date: September 2026 At STFC, we aim to be world class. To remain a leading scientific institution that is internationally recognised, it is crucial we play an active role and align with national net zero and clean energy priorities. In December 2024, STFC Executive Board approved an STFC Environmental Sustainability Strategy which provides the strategic direction for STFC. The strategy sets out our aspirations and direction of travel for environmental sustainability at STFC and the work the Environmental Sustainability (ES) Team do supports this strategic approach. Having a strong environmental sustainability agenda is imperative for STFC to reduce our impact on the environment, lower our carbon emissions, and embed environmental sustainability fully into the organisation. Doing so will help us achieve our strategic vision, provide a proven foundation for our research, and ensure we help to solve the environmental challenges faced by society. Come and discover how much you can achieve in supporting our work to be net zero and positive for the environment. This role will play a tangible part of STFC’s drive towards net-zero and be responsible for an exciting and varied workload within a fast-paced team. The Environmental Sustainability Team The team sits in a central position under the Chief Operating Officer. It’s cross organisational, and we work closely with colleagues across of areas of STFC, acting as advisors to share best practice, support behaviour changes and embed environmental sustainability to reduce our environmental impact. The team works directly connects to and supports STFC’s strategic aims, UKRI Environmental Sustainability Strategy and the wider UK Government Commitments. Responsible for leading all aspects of the long-term planning and implementation of sustainability programmes, projects, policies, reporting, and driving initiatives to enhance STFC’s environmental impact and transition to net zero. It’s a small fast paced team that deals with a wide breadth of tasks and results, no one day is the same! Join this great friendly team and be an agent for change driving forward this important agenda. Graduate Scheme The STFC Graduate scheme will give you the opportunity to really pursue your interests and passion early in your journey with us, supported by technical training and a broader programme of career support and training and development. Our dedicated Graduate Development Team will provide the right combination of challenge and support throughout, helping you achieve your ambitions. We know that professional recognition is also important to you too, so we will provide mentoring and expertise to help you achieve valued qualifications or chartered status in your chosen field. Key Duties & Responsibilities We are seeking two enthusiastic graduates to be at the heart of ensuring the team works well, with a focus on carbon emission reductions and efficiencies supporting the team to embed environmental sustainability across a sophisticated organisation. You need to show you have knowledge of carbon emissions, energy consumption to support our approach to energy efficiencies and communicate the agenda effectively across our science departments. You will be an agent for change, helping to drive the environmental strategic agenda forward. This opportunity will work within a small and supportive team across all STFC sites throughout the UK. You will be coached/mentored towards either Chartered Environmentalist of SocEnv or an Associate Membership of IEMA. Key duties include: Using your knowledge to improve environmental sustainability performance across STFC sites Developing and delivering communications, engagement, events and initiatives that encourage action and culture change to support our environmental sustainability commitments Using your skills and experience, develop and deliver sophisticated and high-profile carbon reduction projects to support the delivery of our Net Zero targets. Person Specification In order to apply for the role we are looking for the following: Essential: Great people skills, the ability to work across hierarchies and engage various people about a complex agenda. An understanding of the complexities around behaviour/culture change. (S&I) Creative thinker with demonstrable communication skills, and capability to write a variety of content to drive change. (S&I) Teamwork and an understanding of stakeholder engagement, experience of events coordination. (S&I) Self-motivated, organised, able to work on own initiative and largely unsupervised with the ability to cope with a high volume of work. (S&I) Multi – tasking, designing and completing projects/initiatives that include multiple layers and complex stakeholder management and deliver different projects simultaneously (S&I) Strong knowledge of the causes of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon, energy cycles and hierarchy approaches to environmental aspects. A broad understanding of the legislative and local, national and international policy frameworks for environmental sustainability. (S&I) Desirable: Student Membership of IEMA (S) A passion for environmental sustainability and becoming a change agent (S&I) Experience of working with procurement or travel teams (S&I) Employee Benefits We are offering a permanent position with a whole host of benefits including: 30 days holiday (in addition to 10.5 bank holidays and privilege days). Flexible working hours. An excellent defined average salary pension scheme. Easily accessible public transport links/ free parking. Excellent learning and development opportunities. Cycle to work scheme. Link to more benefits: https://stfccareers.co.uk/rewards-and-benefits/ As this job does not fulfil the UK Government minimum criterion for obtaining sponsored migrant worker status we will be unable to apply for sponsorship for anyone not eligible to work in the UK. At interview, all shortlisted candidates are required to bring with them identification documents and original documents that prove they hold or can obtain the right to work in the UK. You can check your eligibility here: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/y Application Guidance Please note that we can only accept a maximum of 2 applications per candidate. Part of our application process involves submitting your CV and a cover letter. Your cover letter should address your suitability for the opportunity based how you meet each essential criteria stated in this advert. Please note that we hold the right to close this vacancy early if a sufficient number of applications have been received. We ask some of the biggest questions in the universe, to answer some of the biggest challenges in the world. Together, our scientists, technologists, engineers and business support team explore the unknown across every field you could think of. And they turn what they find into work that changes the world around us. What could you achieve with the world-leading facilities and experts of one of Europe's largest research organisations by your side? Join us and discover what's possible!