Climate Extremes Statistical Scientist

Job Introduction

We’re looking for an exceptional Climate Extremes Statistical Scientist to help us make a difference to our planet.

As our Climate Extremes Statistical Scientist, the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work part-time and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a job share.  Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact

We’re experts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better

We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision-making

We’re better together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make us greater

We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Your world of expertise

As a Climate Extremes Statistical Scientist, you will make an important contribution to providing Government and UK stakeholders information on the likelihoods of a wide range of future weather extremes for a diverse range of applications and users to aid adaptation decisions. You will work as part of the Understanding Climate Change team and develop collaborations with a wide range of scientists, extreme statisticians, and providers of weather services both within the Met Office and externally.  

In this role, you will make an important contribution to quantifying the future hazard to be faced by both the UK and the globe from weather extremes.  This will include how these hazards are changing through time and how the changes vary regionally.  The hazards investigated will principally include: heatwaves, high rainfall, drought and high winds as well as multi-variate or compound extremes.   Multiple sources of climate data with different characteristics will need to be accommodated in a single statistical framework to improve the quality of future projections that minimise the impact of biases in the climate models.  The work will extend to characterising the spatial and temporal aspects of meteorological extremes to be able to answer questions such as: “How large an area will experience extreme temperatures and for how long in 2070”.   Work will involve developing extreme statistical methods to capture dependence in space and time, as well as developing capability for multi-variate and compound extremes.  You will work as part of the Understanding Climate Change team helping to improve our provision of climate information for our national projections, including informing decision frameworks like storylines or tools to build awareness of future weather extremes. You will develop collaborations with a wide range of scientists, extreme statisticians, and providers of weather services both within the Met Office and externally. 

Your key duties

• Characterise the changing likelihood of weather extremes and compound hazards over the coming years, and examine the emergence of these changes, using advanced statistical approaches applied to observations and climate model simulations. This development will result in statistical models that better reflect our physical understanding, such as the role of key large-scale drivers on extremes and modes of natural variability.
• Analyse observations and climate models across a range of resolutions to understand how well these models capture and represent meteorological extremes and how these diverse sources of information can be combined to provide improved estimates of future extreme weather.
• Develop capability to characterise spatio-temporal extremes in collaboration with our external partners.
• Keep abreast of Machine Learning approaches for providing information on meteorological extremes, develop capability to apply such methods and the capability to validate their output.

Why join us

Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing. The Met Office is accredited as a 'Great Place to Work UK 2023' and in addition has achieved a place on both the UK's 'Best Workplaces in Tech' and 'Best Workplaces for Women' lists.

As our Climate Extremes Statistical Scientist, your total reward package will be up to £46,658 annually, which includes:

•  £33,794 base pay.
• An outstanding Civil Service pension, with an average employer contribution of 27%.
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years and option to buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annual leave

Essential Criteria, skills and experience:

1. Postgraduate research experience in physical science, statistics or mathematics (e.g. PhD) or demonstration of equivalent experience (We’re experts by nature).
2. Evidence of experience in processing, analysing and interpreting data from observations and/or numerical simulations using advanced statistical analysis methods (We’re experts by nature).
3. Demonstrated experience of writing computer code in R, Python or other similar coding language to process and/or analyse scientific data.
4. Evidence of the ability to work in a team to successfully deliver a common goal (We’re better together).
5. Evidence of good communication skills (written, oral, presentation and listening).

Desirable Criteria:

We encourage you to apply if you believe you meet our essential criteria, but we’re also keen to discover if you have:

How to apply:

If you share our values, we’d love to hear from you. Apply using your CV and a Cover Letter/Supporting Statement with evidence against each of the essential criteria. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills.

Closing date Monday 27/05/2024 at 23:59 with first stage interviews commencing from 06/07/2024. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.

How we can help:

If you are considering applying and need support to do so, please contact us via careers@metoffice.gov.uk . You can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us. Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

We understand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.