The Datum Report

Occupation 2151 · Professional occupations

Conservation professionals

Half of full-time conservation professionals in the UK earn more than £40,083 a year, and half earn less.

Conservation professionals are responsible for ensuring that landscapes, habitats and species are protected and enhanced via appropriate management and conservation. They promote public understanding and awareness of the natural environment and help to develop and implement appropriate policies to achieve these objectives. They manage water related impacts on the land and surrounding buildings and create safe environments around habitats for public access.

How people enter it

Entrants normally require a degree in a relevant subject, sometimes with a related postgraduate qualification. Entry is also possible with a relevant BTEC/SQA Award or HND. Prior practical work experience (which may be obtained on a voluntary basis) is needed for most posts. Additional on-the-job training is available

What the work involves

• promotes and implements local and national biodiversity action plans, particularly with regard to threatened species and habitats
• carries out environmental impact assessments and field surveys
• implements, evaluates and monitors schemes for the management and protection of natural habitats
• provides advice and information to government at national and local levels, clients, landowners, planners and developers to facilitate the protection of the natural environment
• liaises with other groups in the selection and maintenance of the Protected Site System including Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), Ramsar sites, and Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and National Nature Reserves (NNRs)
• maintains and develops knowledge in relevant policy areas within a national and European legislative context
• promotes conservation issues via educational talks, displays, workshops and literature and liaison with the media
• prepares applications for funding to other organisations, and assessing applications for funding from other organisations
• carries out research into aspects of the natural world

Also called

Conservation officer · Countryside officer · Ecologist · Heritage manager · Land management adviser · Landscape scientist · Marine conservationist

What it pays

How pay has changed

Median gross annual pay for conservation professionals, full-time employees, 2023 to 2025. Each point is that year's ASHE April snapshot as published — revisions are not backfilled into earlier years, and a year ONS withheld is a gap rather than a joined line.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Year-on-year change

The change from each year to the next, in per cent, computed from the figures in the chart above — so the two cannot disagree.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Table

Pay by region

Median gross annual pay for full-time employees, ranked, against the UK figure. 6 of 11 regions are published: ONS withholds a cell where the survey sample cannot support it, and those are shown as gaps rather than dropped — an absent region is not a region without the work in it.

ONS, ASHE Table 14 - occupation by four-digit SOC (national). Period 2025. Table

Every regional figure

ONS does not publish occupational pay below region. Cells the survey could not support are shown as withheld, with its reason — adding a region split to a specific occupation leaves roughly a tenth of cells publishable.

Common questions

Classified alongside this

Environment professionals