Consultant/Senior Consultant – Carbon markets & nature-based solutions (London)

Location: Farringdon, London

Eligibility: Open to candidates who already hold the right to work in the UK only.

Salary: London-benchmarked for your entry level; we'll share the relevant band before the end of the first conversation, as we are hiring at two levels.

Application: Through our Teamtailor page, closing 20 November 2026.

Two levels, one application!

• Consultant: around 2–4 years' experience. You will own workstreams and grow into full assignment ownership.

• Senior Consultant: around 5 years or more. You will own assignments end-to-end, including scope and budget, and hold client and partner relationships directly.

The level at which we think it would be most appropriate for you to enter will be assessed as part of the application process.

The role

At Hamerkop, we are trusted advisors: we do not develop or own carbon projects. We support project developers, NGOs, governments and investors with carbon project design, certification and monitoring. Our independence enables reliable technical judgement that helps clients make informed decisions and return to us.

Our global portfolio covers forestry and land use, clean and improved cooking technologies, renewable energy and waste, across both the VCM and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

You will support or lead technical and advisory work, depending on your experience, with a particular—but not exclusive—focus on our Francophone Africa clients and assignments. Current projects there cover clean cooking access, reforestation, forest conservation, blue carbon and carbon market readiness support.

What you will do

Where you go deep – carbon projects

• Contribute to the development of carbon market policies, frameworks, and jurisdictional-level mechanisms for governments and international organisations.

• Advise on community engagement, free, prior and informed consent and benefit sharing arrangements, in line with best practice guidance and carbon standard requirements

• Advise on project design, carbon asset development, and management, paying particular attention to their environmental and social integrity

• Support clients through certification under Verra, Gold Standard, PACM and other international or domestic standards.

• Guide and quality-assure partner field teams, mostly remotely and during field trips, including foresters, technicians and community enumerators undertaking baseline forest inventories for carbon projects or socio-economic surveys.

• Build and defend robust carbon quantification models: baselines, stratification, biomass estimates, uncertainty and leakage

• Manage technical feasibility studies and due diligence on third-party projects in full or oversee specific workstreams

Where you go broad - the rest of the portfolio

You need not arrive with expertise in our broader portfolio. You should be able to learn unfamiliar methodologies, identify the parameters driving results and produce work we would stake our name on.

• At Consultant level, own workstreams and grow into full assignment ownership. At Senior Consultant level, run assignments end to end, owning scope, workplans, budgets, timelines, and deliverable schedules across several live engagements.

• At Consultant level, coordinate team inputs within your workstreams. At Senior Consultant level, lead small teams of internal and external consultants, technical experts and subcontractors to deliver multi-faceted, long-term projects: brief and coordinate the team, set expectations, allocate responsibilities and provide technical guidance, taking responsibility for consistent, high-quality final deliverables.

• Be the reliable point of contact for clients, funders and partner organisations: managing expectations, chasing inputs, and having the difficult conversation early rather than late

• Help build the company by improving how we work and strengthening our capabilities. Raise our profile through thought leadership, publications, industry events and external engagements.

Travel and field missions: This is primarily an office-based advisory role in London, focused on analysis, methodology work, report and proposal writing, and calls with partners and clients.

You should still expect:

• Approximately 3-5 international trips per year, more at Senior Consultant level, typically to Francophone Africa

• Expect some weekend travel and field days: inventory and survey schedules depend on weather and field-team availability, not a Monday-to-Friday calendar.

• Field conditions may include tropical forest, remote sites, basic accommodation and long days.

• In return: we encourage all our consultants to spend a bit of free time in country, for which we provide full travel and medical insurance cover whilst they do so

What we are looking for

Essential

• A degree in a related field is essential. Postgraduate study is desirable, not required.

• Proven project management: you autonomously plan and track several pieces of work at once, delivering results on time and within budget. You identify and reassess risks early to mitigate budget and operational overruns.

• Stakeholder management: you have acted as an external organisation's point of contact and successfully handled difficult conversations about delayed inputs, scope transgressions and changing expectations.

• You are comfortable remotely coordinating and managing partners, stakeholders, and collaborators not directly employed by HAMERKOP.

• You can produce clear, accurate technical writing in English and French, and communicate complex technical findings to different audiences

• Comfort with GHG accounting concepts: baselines, additionality, leakage, permanence, uncertainty, whether learned formally or on the job

• You have hands-on survey and/or inventory experience, including designing, implementing or overseeing field plots and surveys, mensuration, and handling the data afterwards

• You are confident working with quantitative and qualitative data, analysing results, assessing uncertainty, and critically evaluating assumptions and methodologies

• Willingness to travel as described above, weekends included

• Right to work in the UK without employer sponsorship

Nice to have, genuinely optional; please do not self-reject:

• Climate or carbon markets: Experience contributing to climate and carbon market policy, including regulatory frameworks and national carbon market design.

• Advisory or consultancy: Experience advising governments or institutions on policy design and implementation.

• Experience taking a project through a carbon standard (Verra, Gold Standard, Plan Vivo, CDM, PACM, etc.)

• Fieldwork experience in Africa, Central or Southeast Asia

What we offer

Pay, benefits and development

• Annual salary review plus performance bonus.

• A benefits package that includes gym membership options and a voucher scheme.

• At the offer stage, you receive written criteria for the level above yours—a defined next step wherever you start, rather than a vague promise of growth.

• Normally work four days a week in the UK office during probation, reducing to three depending on performance, with the remaining days worked from home. Additional home-working days can be arranged when needed.

• 25 days annual leave plus UK bank holidays.

• Learn mainly on the job, directly from senior colleagues. A global training budget supports worthwhile external courses and conferences.

How we work

• Join a friendly, sociable UK team of 15, part of around 20 colleagues across London, Singapore and Manila, united by a passion for climate action, nature and communities.

• Collaborate and share knowledge with foresters, ecologists and specialists in energy, policy, finance, social safeguards, GIS and remote sensing. Experienced colleagues provide guidance, and we value everyone's expertise.

• In our small, growing consultancy, take ownership, explore across disciplines and develop interests aligned with our work and ambitions. We value initiative, adaptability and accountability, alongside mutual support and positive impact.

How to apply

Apply through our Teamtailor page by 20 November 2026, with:

1. Your two-page CV,

2. A written statement of no more than two pages addressing the following two questions: What would you bring to HAMERKOP? What is one aspect of forest carbon projects today that you think is done poorly, and why?

Our process, 2 steps:

1. First conversation (45 minutes, video). We go through your experience, and you ask us whatever you want about the role.

2. Office visit (about two hours): a one-hour case study based on a real anonymised project, followed by a conversation with team members about your approach.