Environment Agency
Early Careers

Become Part Of The Solution

If you’re part of the Environment Agency (EA), you’re part of the solution. Working with us means protecting and improving the environment for generations to come, tackling issues of national importance across a huge variety of disciplines and professions. We’re based in over 14 areas across England, and our responsibilities span major industry regulation, flood defences, land contamination, water quality, fisheries and conservation.

Such a broad scope of work calls for diverse, multi-skilled teams, and we offer roles in engineering, research, habitat creation, business planning, communications and asset management. By bringing our talents together, we’ll promote sustainable growth and tackle climate change, securing a better future for everyone.

We pride ourselves on our sense of community and making sure our teams enjoy a positive and caring workplace. That goes for our careers too – whatever your goals, we’ll support you with exceptional coaching and mentoring while giving you opportunities to thrive.

Early Career Routes

There’s no limit to what we can achieve together. Join us, think big, and make a difference.

• Institute of Civil Engineering QUEST Scholarship
• Summer diversity internship scheme
• Graduate engineer training scheme
• Water resources graduate training scheme
• Apprenticeships
• Internships
• Industry placements
• Environment & science graduate training scheme

Make Your Application Shine

Download the recruitment process pack for handy tips and FAQs.

Recruitment Pack

What Role Could You See Yourself In?

The Environment Agency employs around 10,600 people throughout England in a variety of roles including:

• scientists
• geologists
• engineers
• project managers
• planners
• hydrologists
• environment officers
• graduates
• nuclear assessors
• policy advisors
• enforcement officers
• senior managers
• support staff
• hydrogeologists
• hydroecologist
• permitting officer
• hydrometry and telemetry officer
• digital officer
• recruitment and development officer

What Department Could You See Yourself In?

The Environment Agency has a number of different departments you could work in, including:

• Waste
• Nuclear
• Hydrology and telemetry
• Flood resilience
• Research
• Field operations
• Sustainability
• Water quality
• Incident management
• International relations
• Agriculture, fisheries and natural environment
• Climate change and business
• Legal
• Finance/Commercial
• Marketing and communications
• Water Resources

The Environment Agency is a Category One emergency responder under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. We work with the emergency services, the local authorities and other partners to plan for, respond to and aid recovery from emergencies affecting people and the environment across the country. Often we are the sole or lead responder, but on many occasions we are part of a coalition working with our professional partners in the 38 Local Resilience Forums across England.

We handle a wide variety of incidents. They include:

• Pollution – fires, oil spills, radiation, nuclear, waste dumping, odours, noise, pollution of water courses. Examples: the Buncefield explosion at an oil storage facility in 2005, the serious pollution of the Thames by Thames Water in 2013 and 2014 for which they were eventually fined £20m, the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, the Salisbury Novichok attack in 2018.
• Wildlife – threats to animals and habitat. Examples: Foot & Mouth Disease 2001, drought in 2018.
• Water – too little and too much. Examples: managing the risk of environmental damage from drought, which we did in summer 2018, summer 2022 and continue to do today. The summer of 2022 was the driest summer since 1995. By September 2022, 11 out of the 14 Environment Agency areas were in drought. This has a huge impact on people and wildlife such as destroying habitats. We also managed the risk to people from the Toddbrook Dam damaged in the 2019 downpours and protected and supported communities affected by the February 2020 floods.

We handle a lot of incidents. In 2012-2022 76,777 were reported to us, which is one every 7 minutes. And we deploy our people to many of those: on average, an incident requires our attendance once every 40 minutes and about 5 incidents every week require significant deployment of our resources.

The Environment Agency was created in 1996. We have reduced the risk of flooding for thousands of people; helped protect our waters, land and air from pollution; and worked with industry and local communities to promote growth and transform the environment. Successes include:

• a 62% decrease in serious pollution incidents since 2002
• 1.15 million people at risk of flooding signed up to our free flood warning service
• over 1,100 flood defence schemes completed since 2003
• 570,000 households protected from flooding since 2003
• 9,000 hectares of priority habitat created with partners in the last 20 years
• 20% increase in the number of families of invertebrates in our rivers since 1991
• 98.5% of England’s bathing waters pass today’s tougher standards
• over 50 million water quality samples taken since 1996
• 15,000km of rivers improved and protected since 1996
• 300,000 homes now better protected from flooding in England sine 2015 – 2021
• Protected nearly 600,000 acres of agricultural land and thousands of businesses, saving the economy more than £28bn in avoided damages
• More than 1,000 flood defence schemes constructed between 2021-2022
• Average number of invertebrate families present in English Rivers between 1991-2019 increased around 11%
• 97.1% of bathing waters in England have passed water quality standards
• The EA’s regulation of polluting industries has cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 47%
• The amount of waste going into landfill in England has been cut by nearly half (43%) since 2000

These figures are based on the latest available information as of January 2017.

Working for EA

• Drought declared across eight areas of England | Drought | The Guardian
• 300,000 homes now better protected from flooding in England – Defra in the media (blog.gov.uk)
• More than 1,000 flood schemes to benefit from record investment – Defra in the media (blog.gov.uk)
• The future for environmental regulation: Green growth not red tape – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

• Information on the impacts of this drought on people and wildlife: National Trust says extreme weather that disrupted nature in 2022 is just the start | The Independent
• An analysis of national macroinvertebrate trends for England: 1991–2019 – summary – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• 97% of English bathing waters meet required water quality standards – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)