Senior Research Officer

Government Skills, formally Government Skills and Curriculum unit, was created in 2020 to improve the coherence and quality of learning and development in government through better training, knowledge and networks. It is the backbone behind The Campus, a term used to unite all the locations, on and offline, where over 450,000 Civil Servants across Government develop the skills, knowledge and networks they need.

The aim was to accelerate the development of the skills, knowledge and networks of all civil servants, reaching across the wider public sector and delivering better public services for citizens across the country.

As we move into a new era under a new Government the aim is to reduce the cost of learning and improve the quality of outputs by moving to a new operating model. This is an exciting time of growth for Government Skills with new positions being created to support the future operating model.

Evidence and Impact

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 Evidence and Impact team is moving towards being a Centre of Skills Evidence, with this representing another step forward in our rapid growth to date. This will involve us continuing to support Government Skills and the wider skills sector with their evidence needs.

You can find more information about Government Skills on our GOV.UK page: including about our team:

As Senior 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 a G7, and will work on a range of projects across our varied business areas. These are likely to include Fast Stream and emerging talent programmes; leadership and management development; core and priority workforce skills like policy or digital, data and innovation; National Security capability; and priority projects, including digital and data transformation projects. This could also include work on Government Major Projects, and projects involving evaluation, research, or planning relating to the development of Government Skills or the Evidence & Impact team. We will support you to develop your core and technical skills and gain broad experience while in post.

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. This will include designing medium sized or more complex projects for either in-house or commissioned delivery.
• Working across 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 directorate to make full use of data to facilitate appropriate interpretation and decision-making.
• Oversee project management (and undertake if required), including ownership of project plans and ensuring projects run on time and to budget
• 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.
• Specifies, commissions and manage internal research and evaluation projects
• 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 social research and evaluation standards, including the Magenta Book.
• Work with others to ensure training delivery and civil servant skills policy is evidence based
• Contributing to the effective development of the Evidence and Impact Team as we move towards becoming a Centre, 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, and supporting team development.
• Provide advice and support to one or more researchers as required, ensuring they contribute effectively to research and evaluation projects.

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