What it's like to work here

Like our trees, we want people to grow and thrive.

Welcome to the Woodland Trust careers page, where your passion for nature can make a real difference.

We’re a team united by a shared commitment to protecting and restoring our natural world. And we believe in growing together. Whether you’re an experienced professional or just starting your career, we offer a supportive, inclusive environment where everyone’s unique skills and ideas are valued. Join us in our mission to create healthy woods and trees for people and nature, and be part of a dynamic, forward-thinking organisation that empowers its people to create lasting, positive change.

We recognise and value our people. You'll receive full support, training, and ample opportunities for professional development, along with a contributory pension, life assurance, flexible working options and generous holiday entitlement.

But it's not all about work. We believe in fostering an environment where our talented teams thrive. We prioritise a healthy work-life balance, celebrate success, and take employee feedback seriously via our staff representation group and annual staff survey. Plus, many of our team meetings are held in our beautiful woods!

One of the things that I think is most important about conserving woodland in the UK is that when you're thinking about conservation you always think about far off tropical lands, and we don't think about what nature we have here.

And woodland is one of the most important environments in the UK but one of the most under threat, so we all need to do our part to save it.

Hi, my name is Briony and I'm a trustee at the Woodland Trust.

The Woodland Trust is the UK's largest woodland conservation charity. We fight to protect woods and trees, preventing the loss of irreplaceable habitat.

We also bring damaged ancient woods back to life and we create quality native woods and plant native trees to combat climate change. Our vision is a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature.

You could be inspiring people to plant trees, fighting to save woodlands, campaigning for policy change, or raising money to help us continue our vital work.

Our head office is a purpose-built, award-winning building based in Grantham in Lincolnshire, but we operate across the UK.

We've got around 560 staff and loads of volunteers, and everyone here has a combined passion and drive to support the UK's woodland trees.

I think it's really forward-thinking and really creative, and is charging the lead for being a more futuristic, up-to-date charity that is fun to be a part of.

The Woodland Trust really cares about making sure that young people's voices are heard, and values how important and powerful they can be. It's a charity that is really wanting to put those voices at the centre of what they're doing.

Young people are the people who are going to inherit these woodlands and unfortunately the nature crisis and climate problem, so therefore they should be at the front of it.

Our entry-level apprenticeships are a great way to begin your career with the Trust. You don't need experience for these, just the right attitude and a love of trees.

Some of our entry-level roles include junior data analyst, paralegal and social media officer. Often for entry-level roles the skills you need can be learned in a part-time job.

You could also build your experience and demonstrate your passion for nature by planting a tree or supporting an environmental cause.

Even if you don't feel that you have all the essential skills, we encourage you to apply. Your passion for the environment and strong work ethic are just as important.

Whatever you do here, you'll be supporting our work to protect and enhance woods and trees.

Diversity and inclusion

At the Woodland Trust we have a vision of a world where woods and trees thrive for people and nature. We believe that everyone deserves to have their lives enriched by trees.

Currently this is not the case. Who we are and where we live determines how much we access, enjoy and benefit from woods and trees. The environmental and conservation sector is the second-least ethnically diverse in the UK, and we are no different. But we are determined to play our part in changing this fact, and are committed to real systemic change.

We're dedicated to creating a diverse and inclusive place to work for all our staff and volunteers. One of the steps we've taken is to establish inclusion networks. These groups provide community, support and advocacy for our staff and volunteers from marginalised backgrounds.

Our current networks are:

ethnic diversity network
LGBTQIA+ network
disability and neurodiversity network
carers’ network
menopause café
working families
inclusion allies.

We are a Radius-certified Employee Network Investor, which recognises our commitment to supporting the work that our networks do to drive inclusion forward.

Hi, my name is Joe Middleton. I'm a site manager for the Woodland Trust, and I manage some of our woodlands in Devon and Somerset. And welcome to a day in the life.

*RAWR*

Dinosaur.

First things first, tea. Cheese sandwiches. PPE - very important. Layer of porridge all over, really good for the insulation.

Right, first stop. This is Northcote and Upcott Woods, up in North Devon, and we will be spending the day surveying for ancient and veteran trees with a friend of mine - Ben from Bosky Trees.

Any ancient veteran trees we find get tagged with a little small metal tree tag, and then GPSd onto our mapping systems too.

To be an ancient or veteran tree we're looking for a certain number of features. So, on this tree here we've got Ganoderma brackets. We're also looking for hollows, cavities in the bases of the trees, epiphytic plants.

Also looking for the percentage of deadwood, so some of these aren't quite alive. You come around here on the other side of the tree - this is an old beech pollard - and see some of the different types of brown rot and mulm rot, I think - as Ben called it.

Which is all fantastic habitat for invertebrates, our animals that live and feed off of these very old ancient veteran beech pollards.

On to the next wood, Core Hill up in East Devon, where I am putting up some posters. The other part of my job: chief laminator.

*Singing* We are the laminators.

Up in Somerset now, donning the high vis, checking out highways and the road edge, making sure these trees are safe.

And the last site visit of the day. I'm up just near the Devon and Somerset border, a site on the banks of the River Culm, looking at the erosion on this foot path.

So, it looks like the foot path actually disappeared. And Jenny here is a contractor from Tilhill, we're trying to work out what to do.

And back home, just as the rain is starting. Signing off.