Senior Geospatial Analyst

Senior Geospatial Analyst – Crisis, Conflict & Security

GIS Specialist | Freelance

Day rate: €550–600

Location: Northern Italy – Hybrid (a few days per month / 1–2 days per week maximum)

Expected project duration: 4–6 years

Contract: 12-month rolling contract

Engagement: Freelance

About the opportunity

We are recruiting a Senior Geospatial Analyst to support a major international public-sector organisation working in the areas of crisis management, disaster risk, security and humanitarian response.

The wider programme focuses on strengthening situational awareness for crisis management and improving understanding of emerging risks. Activities include crisis monitoring and response, satellite-based emergency mapping, disaster early-warning systems, risk analytics and geospatial intelligence.

You will work within a specialist geospatial team delivering analysis and assessments that support international crisis response, civil protection, security and humanitarian decision-making.

The role

You will turn satellite imagery, conflict-event datasets and heterogeneous open-source information into reliable GIS datasets, high-quality maps, interactive visualisations and timely analytical reports.

The role combines advanced spatial analysis and Earth observation with crisis monitoring, GIS automation, data-quality management and the development of digital geospatial information platforms.

Key responsibilities

• Design and deliver high-quality situation maps, thematic mapping products, geographical visualisations and analytical outputs relating to crisis, conflict and security.
• Monitor crisis, conflict and security developments, systematically selecting, collecting, validating, analysing and integrating open-source information into geospatial datasets.
• Apply advanced geoprocessing, spatial statistics and modelling techniques to produce geospatial assessments and support crisis reporting.
• Process and analyse remote-sensing and Earth-observation imagery in conflict-affected and disaster-affected areas, including land-use/land-cover classification, change detection, damage assessment and reconstruction monitoring.
• Combine text, imagery, statistics and other open-source material into actionable OSINT/GEOINT, structured GIS datasets and situational-awareness products.
• Design conflict-mapping workflows combining event-based datasets with open-source geospatial information.
• Contribute to the continued development of digital geospatial platforms and information products.
• Support platform maintenance, including user-access policies, user-role configurations and platform-usage monitoring.
• Support the integration and deployment of AI-driven functionality and geospatial large-language-model capabilities within geospatial information platforms.
• Create, maintain and curate GIS datasets, ensuring accuracy, consistency and compliance with metadata and data-model standards.
• Maintain and optimise geodatabases, including version control, data lineage and integration with external sources.
• Manage coordinate reference systems, projections and transformations to maintain spatial accuracy across platforms.
• Implement data-quality checks, validation rules and automated workflows to ensure spatial data is accurate, complete and consistent.
• Develop interactive dashboards and story maps using Power BI and ArcGIS Online, covering crisis, conflict and policy-related information.
• Support geospatial data dissemination through web-mapping technologies, including WFS and enterprise GIS environments.
• Prepare presentations, analytical reports, technical documentation and emergency reports explaining GIS findings and methodologies.
• Participate in crisis-management exercises, providing analytical geospatial products.
• Support operational crisis-monitoring and information-management activities, including monitoring incoming information, circulating updates and notifying relevant stakeholders of new developments or activations.
• Contribute to rapid-analysis activities when required.

Minimum qualifications and experience

• University degree in Information Technology, Geoinformatics, Geography, GIS or a related field, corresponding to EQF Level 7 or equivalent.
• At least 15 years of professional IT experience.
• Very good spoken and written English at CEFR B2 level or above.

Required experience

At least 15 years of proven experience in:

• GIS methodologies, tools and platforms such as ArcGIS or QGIS, including spatial analysis and converting scientific data into static and interactive maps, dashboards and infographics.
• Data transformation, enrichment, quality assurance, dissemination and visualisation within a GIS environment.
• Advanced processing, integration and analysis of Earth-observation data, including photo-interpretation of very-high-resolution imagery in disaster scenarios.
• Open-source and geospatial intelligence (OSINT/GEOINT), including collecting, validating and integrating heterogeneous sources such as text, imagery, social-media feeds and statistical datasets into coherent GIS layers and situational-awareness products.
• Processing and analysing security and conflict data, including producing rapid situation maps to support situational awareness.

At least 10 years of proven experience in:

• Python programming and automation for automated GIS pipelines.
• Drafting technical documentation, analytical reports, emergency reports and briefs providing geospatial assessments of conflict and security.

At least 5 years of proven experience in:

• Interactive visualisation and dashboard development using Power BI and ArcGIS Online.

Additional technical expertise

• Excellent knowledge of GIS methodologies and technologies, including ArcGIS and QGIS, with practical experience in spatial analysis, geospatial data management and cartographic design.
• Good knowledge of spatial analysis methods, including computational geometry, network analysis, geostatistics, photogrammetry and remote sensing.
• Good knowledge of geospatial data transformation, enrichment, quality assurance, dissemination and visualisation.
• Knowledge of web-cartography technologies and standards, including HTML5, JavaScript, CSS, SVG, ArcGIS web-mapping technologies, QGIS and GeoJSON/TopoJSON.
• Good knowledge of Earth-observation data collection, processing, integration and analysis, including sources such as Copernicus, Sentinel and Landsat.
• Experience in advanced preprocessing and photo-interpretation of very-high-resolution satellite imagery in disaster scenarios using ENVI/ERDAS.
• Programming and scripting knowledge for automated GIS workflows, web services and software development.
• Knowledge of Power BI and ArcGIS Online for interactive dashboards.
• Proficiency in conflict and security data analysis, with knowledge of conflict-monitoring methodologies.
• Strong knowledge of OSINT tools and platforms for crisis monitoring, including ingesting near-real-time feeds and converting textual, visual and statistical information into current GIS layers.
• Experience producing technical documentation, analytical reports, emergency reports and geospatial assessment briefs.

Professional skills

• Strong spatial analysis skills and commitment to accurate data capture and reporting.
• Ability to resolve GIS integration and configuration challenges, including those involving OSINT and GEOINT.
• Strong organisational skills and ability to manage several large GIS projects concurrently, maintaining version control, data lineage and automated quality checks.
• Ability to communicate GIS strategies and findings to senior stakeholders.
• Interest in emerging GIS tools and technologies.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively, delivering high-quality outputs under time pressure.
• Ability to participate effectively in multilingual meetings and multicultural working environments.

Certifications and security clearance

No specific certification or security clearance requirement is currently specified.

Working environment

You will work within a multicultural, multilingual international environment, requiring strong professional ethics, diligence, responsibility and discretion when handling personal or confidential information.

The successful consultant will be expected to comply with the organisation's professional and ethical requirements.