Senior Evidence and Impact Research Officer

at  Cabinet Office

JOB SUMMARY

The Government People Group exists to work with departments, professions, and functions to build a modern, effective Civil Service.
We support the government workforce with the right skills and capability. We are working with leaders to get the right people in the right jobs, with the right skills and continuous learning to excel in their roles.
We provide leadership, and in turn, create leaders with exceptional line management capability across departments, influencing partners in the wider public sector and beyond. This involves getting our retention and reward strategy right, to nurture specific skills, and create pride and resilience in our workforce.
Our role is also to provide system leadership across central government in pulling together back office services. Collectively, we help support the Cabinet Office’s priority to drive efficiencies, and reforms that will make government work better, to ultimately provide a better service to the public.
Within the GPG, Government Skills was set up in 2020 to drive up capability across Government in an evidence-based and impact-led way. Government Skills ensures all civil servants, from entry to most senior leadership, have the core and specialist knowledge, skills and networks they need to deliver great public services and address complex systemic challenges, now and in the future. This work is central to the Public Sector Reform and Efficiency policy area, and supports Mission Delivery by ensuring the workforce has the capability and learning culture to deliver against the Government’s missions.
The Evidence and Impact team within Government Skills is responsible for ensuring that hundreds of millions of pounds of annual spend on developing the skills, knowledge and relationships of the Government workforce is evidence-based and impact-led. We use a combination of analytical methods covering monitoring/data analytics, social research, evaluation, statistics, behavioural and user research, and economic analysis to provide robust, purposeful insights to inform business decisions. Our evidence supports the creation of effective policy and strategy on the future skills needs of the government and wider public sector workforce, and supports effective design, commissioning and delivery of the interventions required to achieve this. The team has a reputation as a centre of expertise supporting the whole of government on these issues, and is expanding as part of plans for the next spending review period 2025-26.
You can find more information about Government Skills on our GOV.UK page: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-skills-and-curriculum-unit including about our team: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/evidence-based-learning-and-development and our current Evaluation Strategy: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-campus-evaluation-strategy.

JOB DESCRIPTION

As Senior Evidence and Impact Research Officer you will lead and manage research and evaluation projects which contribute programmatically to the evidence base on ‘what works’, for who, in what conditions, and why, when building the capability and skills of the civil service and public sector workforce. As part of a diverse, and expanding, analytical team you will work in partnership with other analysts, and with policy and delivery colleagues, to build capacity across the system to develop and mobilise high quality evidence to develop the government and public sector workforce we need to deliver the Government’s Missions and other key priorities.
You will apply your social research knowledge, skills and relationships to develop robust and purposeful monitoring and evaluation approaches for specific programmes, supporting innovation through ‘test and learn’ by striking the right balance between speed of evidence and rigour. You will lead evidence reviews and mapping exercises to ensure we are making best use of existing evidence, and make recommendations for new research and evaluation projects based on this. You will design and deliver research projects which help us to understand the capability, learning and development landscape across Government, and help us design interventions that really shift the dial on skills, and work in the varied contexts of the civil service and public sector. You will work proactively across the whole Civil Service to support policy, delivery and investment teams working on civil service and public sector workforce capability, ensuring they have the evidence and tools they need to make decisions.
You will report to the Evidence and Impact Lead for Leadership and Management, who is also the head of research operations for the team, but will work on a range of projects across our varied business areas. These are likely to include leadership and management development; core and priority workforce skills like policy or digital, data and innovation; the Fast Stream and emerging talent; National Security capability; and priority projects, including digital and data transformation projects and Government Major Projects.

QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates must be eligible to be badged into the Government Social Research (GSR) profession at SRO level. If you are a Civil Servant already badged into GSR at SRO level please be prepared to show evidence of your badging as part of the process. Information about GSR can be found on the Social Research Profession website, https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/civil-service-government-social-research-profession.
You must qualify for Social Research membership via one of the following two routes:
Relevant Qualification route: Hold an undergraduate degree at a minimum of 2:2. The degree must contain substantial social research methods training (comprising around one third of modules taken on the course) including quantitative research methods and at least three of the following: systematic/literature reviews; qualitative methods; interpretation of data and presentation of results; study design, hypothesis testing and application of ethics to research.
Professional Experience route: Hold an undergraduate degree at a minimum of 2:2, in any subject, or a degree equivalent (e.g. an advanced Certificate or Diploma from MRS), plus have at least 4 years’ social research practice experience. Social research practice experience consists of experience working in a research agency, market research agency or specialist research team. To enter the GSR through this route you must make explicit the breadth and depth of your research experience and skills, which must include quantitative research methods and three of the following: systematic/literature reviews; qualitative methods; interpretation of data and presentation of results; study design, hypothesis testing and application of ethics to research.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

We’ll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• GSR Technical Skills
• GSR Using and Promoting Social Research

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £42,382, Cabinet Office contributes £12,278 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Things you need to know

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE:

• Lead specific research and evaluation projects, ongoing monitoring activity, and thematic strands of our research programme to strengthen the existing evidence base on government and public sector skills, working across the full cycle of intervention design and delivery. As part of this work, design and deliver impact, process and economic evaluation of interventions; systematised evidence reviews; and research projects.
• Develop and implement appropriate monitoring processes and reporting tools, supporting the Government Skills team to make full use of data to facilitate appropriate interpretation and decision-making.
• Alongside the Evidence and Impact Team leads, work closely with internal stakeholders to identify, prioritise and thematically connect longer term and immediate evidence needs (including understanding user needs and implementation contexts for Government Skills’ work).
• Promote innovation in social research methods through applying your existing knowledge and skills, and proactively upskilling yourself, for example, on ethical and robust use of AI within social research, or participatory research methods.
• Manage internal and external commissioning of research and evaluation projects, and project manage these once in delivery.
• Contribute towards our (externally commissioned or internal) evaluation or research projects being robust, purposeful, efficient and aligned with the Government Campus Evaluation Strategy and other relevant policies, including the Magenta Book.
• Contributing to the effective development of the Evidence and Impact Team by leading on at least one cross-cutting work area, for example, developing shared resources to support high quality research and evaluation methods and processes across the team.