Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Job description

Energy Garden is recruiting a part-time Community Engagement Officer to support our team during the 2026 growing season. This is an exciting opportunity to work with local communities who are taking action on climate change and improving biodiversity across London. The role involves traveling across various London sites.

• Salary: £30,500 pro rata  
• Location: London
• Hours: Part time (3 days per week, definitely Wednesdays)   Note: Whilst core office hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, the nature of the role involves a degree of some evening and weekend working. Time spent working outside core hours offset informally by flexible start / end times. Time off in lieu given for any additional full/half days worked. 
• Contract: Fixed-term, 5 months (May 2026 – September 2026) with possibility for full-time extension 
• Deadline: Sunday 29th March 2026 
• Preferred Start Date: late April/early May 2026 
• How to apply: Email CV and cover letter to anna@energygarden.org.uk , please also include which borough you live in as we are seeking applicants close to our gardens. 
• Interview process: We will hold in-person interviews on the week commencing April 13th, 2026.

About the role

As a Community Engagement Officer, you will be supporting the delivery of Energy Garden’s green spaces and community programmes during the busy 2026 growing season. You will be working across Energy Garden’s network of green spaces (gardens & treescapes), predominantly in West/North-West London, collaborating with the wider team to deliver gardening sessions, maintain green spaces to a high standard, and co-facilitate horticultural workshops in schools. 

Your role is to support the delivery of our different projects:  

• Community gardening: you will facilitate scheduled weekly gardening sessions at different sites, guiding volunteers in different gardening tasks, teaching them new skills, and fostering curiosity and independence.  
• Treescapes: you will assist Energy Garden’s Community Trees Lead with the maintenance of new treescape sites, including after-care and monitoring. 
• School Workshops Programme: you will attend schools in the vicinity of our different green spaces to co-facilitate one-day horticultural workshops alongside Energy Garden’s Education Lead. This will involve working with children in KS2-KS5. 

This is a demanding role that requires extensive travel across London, working outside in all weather conditions, and performing physically strenuous tasks. You will be supporting and collaborating with engagement, education, trees and biodiversity officers. With this knowledge, we are seeking a flexible and dynamic person who can work as part of a team and communicate effectively. You will also be responsible for working with the wider team and coordinating materials and logistics to ensure engagement sessions are appropriately resourced.  

In this public facing role, you will be a representative of Energy Garden, working alongside the rest of the team, volunteers, station staff, community groups and other stakeholders at each under your care. You will support the development of the gardens in accordance with an agreed horticultural plan, biodiversity plan, community consultation, and partner feedback so that the spaces improve the health and wellbeing for those visiting the gardens. You will be able to enact best practice and support the continued integration of the gardens into the wider Energy Garden network. 

Key Responsibilities

1. Community Gardens and School Facilitation

You will support the delivery of regular gardening sessions at Energy Garden sites, helping volunteers learn practical skills while caring for the gardens. You will also help deliver Energy Garden’s school workshops programme, working alongside our Education Lead to provide hands-on learning experiences for students.

Responsibilities include:

• Facilitating engaging gardening sessions for local volunteers, in collaboration with community groups, rail industry organisations and local councils. 
• Leading varying weekly gardening activities according to the season 
• Plan and co-facilitate in-school horticultural workshops for KS2-KS5 groups alongside the Education Lead.  
• Candidates must be able to pass an enhanced DBS check. This post involves working with children so is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA)1974. 

2. Site Monitoring and Maintenance

You will help ensure Energy Garden sites remain welcoming, healthy and biodiverse spaces.

Tasks include:

• Ensuring allocated gardens and treescapes are maintained to a high standard
• Weeding, pruning, tidying, watering, mulching, in addition to other gardening tasks that will ensure the successful establishment of new spaces as well as long-term success of our existing spaces
• Maintenance tasks in the treescapes such as staking, fixing tree ties and guards

3. Logistics

You will also support the practical coordination of tools and resources required for sessions across multiple sites.

Responsibilities include:

• Ensuring all appropriate tools and equipment supplied to your gardens. Smaller items will be required to be taken with you on public transportation.  
• Travel throughout London to different Energy Garden sites (all work related travel expenses are reimbursed) 

About You

Your Experience

• You have worked at least 1-2 years in a similar role or have other demonstrable experience in a similar project, such as a community garden or other grassroots community project.
• Experience working with and managing volunteers.
• Experience facilitating groups of varying sizes, preferably in an outdoor setting, with an eye to being inclusive to all members of the community.
• Experience liaising with external stakeholder at different levels of seniority.  

Other desirable skills include: 

• You are a people person. You will be consistently working alongside various stakeholders representing and advocating for Energy Garden. In your day-to-day, you will be meeting new people and integrating them into your garden group networks.
• You have experience working with sustainability concepts such as; gardening without pesticides, implementing circular economy practices, using permaculture techniques, and designing for wildlife.   

Abilities

• Ability to work effectively as part of a team.
• Ability to use own initiative and work independently, effectively managing workload, prioritising tasks and make decisions independently.
• Comfortable facilitating groups of people with mixed abilities and directing them in a task.
• Excellent organisational abilities, including the skill to set and deliver individual and group targets.
• Experience/ability to discuss and resolve issues in a diplomatic way.
• Flexibility to work occasional weekends and evenings as required.
• Physically able - with a passion for working in nature and with your hands.
• Ability and willingness to follow (child) safeguarding policies and practices.  

Traits we like

• Energetic and proactive, working autonomy in all weather conditions! 
• Friendly and collegiate, able to engage and collaborate with people from different backgrounds 
• Strong communicator, effective at supporting people with the right skills, tools and networks. 
• Team player – comfortable working with community groups to deliver shared goals
• Flexible and organised – can work in a fast-paced environment with evolving priorities 
• Ability to rise to a challenge
• Experienced and knowledgeable about the local area 
• Passionate about sustainability and committed, with a strong desire to support local people to make lasting change in their borough.  

About Energy Garden

Energy Garden is a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society that works across London to transform Overground platforms and disused urban spaces into vibrant and biodiverse community gardens for the benefit of local people, commuters and nature.

Since 2012, Energy Garden has developed a network of community gardens and solar projects across London, transforming under-utilised station platforms into vibrant green spaces that improve biodiversity and enable food growing on transport infrastructure. Each garden is managed by a dedicated engagement officer working closely with local communities and station staff and is supported by our wider team of education, biodiversity, arborist and horticulture experts. Regular volunteering sessions held throughout the year are used to create and maintain these spaces, with larger seasonal events used to bring volunteers together from across our network. Collaboration is central to our work and every station garden reflects the community that lives and travels there. With over 1.2 billion passenger journeys on the London Underground and Overground each year, our energy gardens are seen by millions of people each year and the average station will see 15,000 passenger visits a day.   

Our volunteers benefit from access to green space, the ability to connect with fellow community members, participating in practical gardening design and maintenance activities, as well as expert sessions on horticulture, biodiversity and energy.  Energy Garden also runs education programmes that further connect our gardens to local communities, engaging and educating future generations on a range of social and environmental issues.  Specifically, we work with local schools (key stages 2 to 5) and our paid AQA accredited Youth Training Programme (for young Londoners aged 18-24) also offers opportunities for interacting with the gardens.   

Central to our model is the use of community-owned solar energy to provide a sustainable source of funding for delivering social and environmental benefits to communities. That many of the gardens have an off-grid micro solar installation, our activities are primarily funded by revenues from large-scale community solar PV projects installed on rail depots across the UK. These award-winning projects fund our social and environmental community programmes (gardens and education), decarbonise the rail, and generate a reasonable financial return for members.

Disclaimer

You must have the right to live and work in the UK. Non-EU nationals who require a work permit to take up employment will not be considered.  Energy Garden is an equal opportunities employer and positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity.  

We regret that we will only be able to reply, and give feedback, to short-listed applicants.  

Application information

To apply, please email your CV and cover letter to anna@energygarden.org.uk and include the London borough where you live in as we are seeking applicants close to our gardens. 

We will hold in-person interviews on the week commencing April 13th, 2026.

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs