Job Profile

What does your job involve and what might a typical day involve?

As Area Warden, I’m part of a team that manages 7km of beautiful coast in West Penwith Cornwall. I plan projects, organise events such as the Country Fair in September, meet contractors, consultants, tenants and members of the public, look after seasonal staff working as recruiters and liaise with the West Penwith Property Manager. I’m also responsible for keeping control of budgets, and managing staff and volunteers – ensuring that they work to defined programmes and within essential health and safety standards. I work closely with local schools and with other organisations. There’s usually one or more large scale projects going on which I am involved with. For example recently these have included a week-long drama workshop with local schools, Clean Sweep, a sewage scheme crossing our land and a project to eradicate invasive weeds from a local valley.

As a result, there’s no such thing as a typical day. Every day is different and diverse. I usually try to include time in the office, a couple of site visits to see how things are going, meet up with contractors or staff with the Warden and volunteers.

What qualifications and experience did you have before starting the job?

I picked up lots of experience doing all sorts of other things after I left school, then I volunteered for the National Trust locally, and realised straight away that I really loved it.

What qualifications did you feel were necessary once you had been appointed?

A lot of it is down to learning practical skills like fencing, hedging, footpath maintenance from the people you’re working with, there are also a wide range of environmental and practical courses on offer. I also did extra studies in Countryside Management at Birkbeck in London for three years and learned a lot about how and why we manage the countryside the way we do.

Good project management and organisational skills play an important part of my job as do IT skills.

It is also important that I have good communication skills in order to be able to work well with project partners for example when resolving problems on site.

What are the best and worst bits of your job?

You never know what’s going to be around the corner, so there’s always lots of variety. You never get bored. One of the best aspects is working and living in an amazing place.

There are no really awful things, although office administration work sometimes gets in the way of getting out and about. One important thing I have learnt is to say no to certain things. The National Trust encourages its people to have a healthy work/life balance, but you also have to be strict with yourself to make sure you get the balance right.

What satisfaction do you get from your work and how does it make a difference?

I get an enormous amount of job satisfaction from my job. Enabling nature conservation projects to take place and seeing the diverse range of flora and fauna as a result of this is great. It can be very enjoyable working with farmers and lots of really nice people and seeing big projects come to fruition – things like the Japanese knotweed eradication project.

Do you have any tips for someone looking for a career in this area?

• Get a wide range of practical experience in several different places
• Find out what your strengths and weaknesses are before applying for a job
• Don’t say no if an opportunity to try something new comes up
• Volunteer and learn from others
• Take responsibility when it’s offered
  
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