Is it possible to have a “proper” career in ecological consultancy or is seasonal field surveying about as good as it gets?
I have the opportunity to make a mid life career change into an area that actually interests me rather than one that just pays the bills but I also have financial responsibilities. Does anyone have any experience?

Of course it is possible to make a career of it. Even in just the narrow area of field surveying you can do that year round. The wife used to travel to the middle east in the winter for surveys. If you are willing to broaden out into other environmental areas then its all out there eg: http://www.wwtconsulting.co.uk/about-us/careers/ These are £30-£50k jobs so should pay the bills too

We use ecologists all year round, for a variety of things. A lot of building projects, even on sites like schools, will have requirements for a Habitat Survey and desktop assessment prior to construction. Then if you find anything, especially bats, newts or nesting birds there’s more involvement monitoring them, possibly moving them etc.

You can progress from graduate/new level ecologist all the way up to a director if you want to.

Its very competitive and very poorly paid As far as I’ve seen. It also looked pretty dull from where I was stood.

I think that is my concern. I have wanted a career in ecological consulting since I left university but I fell into financial services instead. Now I have the opportunity to retrain I need to be sure that it can be a long term career and that the years of earning less than unskilled shop workers / bar staff will be short. I don’t expect salaries to compete with the city but I would like to be able to pay my mortgage and feed my children. Thanks for the views.

I’d say the competitive nature of that sort of work will be the biggest issue. There are loads of people desperate to get into it and lots will have plenty of experience and qualifications. When my wife’s old firm advertised for very low paid interns they’s be inundated with applicants including quite a few phds. Once your in there is scope to move around and get promoted and there is plenty of work out there but that foot in the door could be hard, especially coming from a different background.

Maybe if you can use your current skill set somehow. A lot of the work is budget related and dependent on funding and grants so there can be quite a big financial element that people from a pure ecological background may struggle with.

Yes you can but I imagine most STWers would scoff at the salary, if you are coming from finance you might be in for a shock. There have been a few threads on the topic which should provide info but with no experience if you can manage to find a job you may be starting on less than 20k, working up from there. After the first few years your rising fee rate will likely exclude you from field work unless you develop a specialism eg ornotholigist, marine biologist. Some consultancies you’ll be largely desk based, some you’ll be out and about more, subbed out to the bigger companies.

My academic background is ecology, but I’ve specialised in GIS in the environmental sector, working with ecoligists and engineers etc. There’s a lot of ecology graduates and not so many jobs, long hours and neverending deadlines and not much salary, but if it’s your passion you should really enjoy it and feel a bit less like a mindless drone when you do get out on site.

Bigjim raises some good points.

I’m a senior consultant ornithologist.

My advice: you need to try and carve a niche for yourself, ideally based on what clients actually need and what you’re good at, rather than what animals you like. I have a specific set of skills and experience which sets me apart from people who just want to do <INSERT ANY SPECIES HERE> surveys.

If you’re coming from financial services you will have skills that most ecologists do not. Numerical? Client facing? Use them to your advantage. Consultants potentially have a varied job spec, it depends on what you are good at. You’ll have to demonstrate a knowledge of birds/newts/bats/whatever too though. Depending on what you’re interested in and where you’re based there are usually ways of getting some experience for free (e.g. local raptor study group).

Joining CIEEM isn’t a bad idea. I have found them of limited use, but clients and employers seem to like it.

Regarding pay: I have a degree and a PhD in a related subject. I think I started on £19k in 2009. I now earn around £33k. If I applied for another job tomorrow I’d be looking to get closer to £40k.

The fact that its interesting and I feel like I’m doing something useful and beneficial for people/the environment is what I like the most about it.

What I like least about it is sitting for 3 hours at a time in a peat bog in Sutherland, getting ravaged by midges.

What I like least about it is sitting for 3 hours at a time in a peat bog in Sutherland, getting ravaged by midges.

I’m not sure what’s worse, the midges or digitising VP flight line spaghetti that doesn’t match up with the accompanying spreadsheet 😀

What I like least about it is sitting for 3 hours at a time in a peat bog in Sutherland, getting ravaged by midges.

I still think that would be better than spending 3 hours at a time stuck on a train into London getting ravaged by stressed out commuters. 🙂

I have an informal interview later this week and so your input is really helpful – thanks. I’m hoping my experience (highly analytical and client facing) combined with my old MSc in ecology should make me a little different.

I have an informal interview later this week and so your input is really helpful – thanks. I’m hoping my experience (highly analytical and client facing) combined with my old MSc in ecology should make me a little different.

If you’re willing to look beyond being a ‘pure’ ecologist there’s a whole range of work within environmental consultancy, at the end of the day everything comes down to money and being good at selling services to clients is important. They’ll basically want to know what you can bring to the company and how you can apply your experience to develop and sell their services, and make them stand out from their competitors. Budgets, project management and time management are fundamentals of the job so if you’ve strong experience of those make it show. Definitely worth a bit of background research into what the company does and what their key deliverables might be and learning a bit about them, eg EIA.