Senior Parks Consultant

We're looking for our next Senior Parks Consultant in Sydney

It's a unique role with a wide variety of interesting projects, and a chance to be innovative with your practical open space management, operational experience and parks asset knowledge. Our team loves finding solutions that are also feasible and practical, and make a positive impact on our industry.

Join us for flexible working, great clients, meaningful work, and a consultant team who share your love of parks and open spaces.

A consultancy firm that helps local government and other agencies plan and deliver parks and recreation benefits for communities.

We do this by supporting our clients with sustainable planning and management of parks, open spaces and public facilities, to create better towns and cities for people to live and play.

Xyst operates in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Our team of highly qualified and experienced consultants provides practical, feasible and achievable solutions to deliver projects that meet the needs of communities, support sustainability and minimise the impact on the environment.

• Providing a safe and healthy work environment
• Providing a good work/life balance
• Being at the forefront of industry leadership
• Excelling in recruitment of future leaders
• Adding value to our customers and their communities
• Positioning ourselves so we choose the organisations to work for
• Being the consultant of choice
• Prospering from repeat business
• Being financially successful

The Senior Parks Consultant is a person who is experienced in parks/open space management, and who will support and grow the Xyst consultancy business and its reputation.

The person will have a broad range of knowledge and practical skills associated with parks/open spaces that ideally cover the holistic disciplines of parks planning, asset management, operations and service delivery.

Whilst a broad range of experience would be ideal, it is acknowledged that typically only one or sometimes two of the disciplines are considered strengths. The nature of the position will enable the successful candidate to focus and develop the scope of their work to suit their particular skill base and specialist interest area, with the expectation that they will also extend their skills and experience over time into other disciplines through mentoring by Directors, training opportunities and exposure to a range of different projects and clients. Our holistic approach to solution development is one of Xyst's competitive edges, and we encourage and support staff to work across the disciplines with confidence and competence.

Xyst will support the successful candidate with the provision of work. However, there is a strong expectation that the person will have the skills, networks and attitude needed to secure new work and further build their own, and Company's, network over time.

Xyst operates throughout Australia. Our current portfolio of work focuses largely on the Melbourne/Victoria and Sydney regions, with an intent to also move into Queensland. The role will be home-office based, to provide significant flexibility and a great work/life balance, with an element of travel due to the nature of Xyst's niche market and national/international reach.

Our consultancy work currently has the following focus disciplines:

• Operational support (business service reviews and levels of service)
• Project and Contract Management
• Contract drafting and procurement
• Asset management (asset management plans, training, condition assessment, valuations)
• Strategic planning (open space, playground, trail and public toilet strategies and development of management plans)
• Parks Surveys (surveying park users on their experience while using the park)

We are also engaged by IPWEA, on an ongoing basis, to provide parks management training seminars and workshops.

For more information and some examples of current/past projects, please refer to our website

In addition to our consultancy work we are also the owner of the Yardstick suite of benchmarking tools. Yardstick provides a web-based tool to undertake benchmarking and user survey programs primarily aimed at local government services. Our core program is the Parks Benchmarking program which operates in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Denmark.

This program requires Xyst to undertake annual onsite auditing of more than 120 parks organisations. Xyst understands the value of exposing its staff to a wide range of issues and practices, and actively encourages staff to assist with auditing within Australia and internationally.

For more information please refer to

Part of Xyst's success is the calibre of staff we recruit and there are certain qualities and attitudes we look for, including:

• Bringing a "can do" attitude to the team
• Being flexible and reliable
• Being sociable and able to get along with a wide range of people and cultures
• Being innovative and open to new ideas and ways of doing things
• Being self-motivated
• Being thoroughly professional and honest
• Being practical and to the point

Other key attributes:

• Clean, current Full Driver Licence
• First Aid Certificate Level 1
• Qualifications relevant to areas of expertise
• Experience in strategic planning and project management
• Appropriate affiliations within the industry
• Excellent, clear communication skills
• Proactive, professional and friendly client relationship skills
• 5+ years' parks management experience
• Staff leadership experience

Please apply with your CV and Cover Letter by 31 August 2025

NOTE: While this is a home-based role, it is based within the Sydney Metropolitan Area (within approx 1 hour of Sydney CBD).

Full Position Description available upon request - contact Rob Lile, Business Manager