Lead Analyst

UK Research and Innovation

Lead Analyst x2

Salary: £56,745

Hours: Full time/Part time (Minimum 0.8 FTE)

Contract Type: Open Ended.

Location: Polaris House, Swindon (Hybrid working available)

Closing Date: Sunday 5th January 2025

Job Summary

We are recruiting for two Lead Analysts to join the UKRI Analysis team. Both roles will require working across key strategic or policy areas for UKRI, ensuring that advice and decisions are underpinned by evidence. One vacancy will report to the Head of Strategic Analysis, whilst the other vacancy will report to the Head of Policy Analysis. You will be an accomplished analyst able to deploy a range of techniques to answer challenging analytical questions, deliver an analytical portfolio through effective delegation, and influence senior stakeholders.

Job Description

Both roles will require leading a team of up to two analysts to deliver insights into key strategy or policy areas. The roles will involve collaborating closely with the relevant strategy/policy teams within UKRI’s Investment Planning and Strategy directorate (the directorate that this role sits in), as well as other parts of UKRI, DSIT and wider stakeholders. The roles will comprise of influencing senior leaders within UKRI and government on some of the highest priority areas under focus.

• Support UKRI in using evidence, analysis and insight to respond to challenges, opportunities and risks associated with strategic and policy questions. As part of this, you will provide analysis to enable UKRI to make informed policy decisions with both external and internal stakeholders.
• Be an analytical leader in your domain, acting as partner and advisor to strategy/policy in translating policy and strategic questions into analytical asks, advising on the appropriate use of data, and convening and catalysing internal and external stakeholders to deliver analytical goals.
• Brief UKRI’s senior leaders and Board on the latest data and evidence relating to key aspects of the research and innovation system. This will rely upon using innovative quantitative analysis techniques to make the most of UKRI’s data, as well as external data such as that published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency and Office for Students.

· Apply advanced quantitative approaches such as data linking, scenario modelling and statistical testing to support decision making on complex strategic and policy questions.

Priorities and the direction of the analysis teams naturally evolve and develop over time, and there is the expectation of role holders to apply their skillsets to other domain areas as appropriate. There will be opportunities to support on other topics that the team covers for UKRI as a whole and also for specific cross-cutting policy areas such as talent, commercialisation and place, including thematic analysis of the portfolio, ensuring business cases for new investment are underpinned by robust economic appraisal, applying modelling and statistical techniques to derive additional insight from our data and preparing evidence to support UKRI’s multi-billion bid at fiscal events such as Spending Review and subsequent allocations.

About you

Essential qualifications: A degree (if a joint honours at least half of the degree should be relevant) or equivalent work experience in economics, statistics, data science, operational research, social research, or highly numerate subjects such as mathematics, physics or engineering.

Essential skills and experience that will be assessed through the recruitment process:

• Excellent analytical skills: an experienced analyst with a track record of delivering high-quality analytical products that meet strategic needs. Possession of a quantitative analytical skillset, able to maximise the use of multiple quantitative datasets; for example, through using R, Python or SQL. Awareness of and ability to apply economic principles and economic methods to analytical challenges.
• Management of a portfolio: Ability to balance the delivery of longer-term projects with immediate and responsive tasks - clearly outlining priorities, delegating roles and responsibilities to team members / counterparts. This will involve line management of a senior analyst and coordinating work across yourself and two analysts.
• Strong communicating and influencing skills: specifically communicating analytical findings to non-technical audiences that reflect and meet the needs of the strategic context, and generating buy-in from senior audiences in UKRI and government.
• Seeing the big picture: Exhibiting strategic acumen through ensuring that plans and activities in your area of work reflect wider strategic priorities, as well as being flexible in adapting to shifting requirements and short-turnaround demands in an uncertain environment.
• Ability to build relationships and working together with others: lead joint working with other teams and organisations, showing awareness of how this complements your work, and where you have benefitted others.

Desirable skills:

• Familiarity with the UK’s research and innovation system.
• Experience in producing analysis and evidence consistent with HMT Green Book and Magenta Book principles and assurance processes as set out in the Aqua Book.

Application process and shortlisting criteria

Applicants are invited to submit a CV and a cover letter. The cover letter should cover the following:

• Analytical skills – examples from previous experience that provide evidence to support your application for an analytical role as specified above.
• Management of a portfolio – highlighting prior experience of managing a portfolio of analytical projects, as well as line management experience.
• Examples from previous experience that demonstrate your aptitude in the following three behaviours:

o Communicating and influencing

o Seeing the big picture

o Working together

o for guidance see Success Profiles: Civil Service Behaviours – this role is equivalent to a Grade 7 banding in the Civil Service so applicants should provide evidence at least on a par with ‘Grade 7 and Grade 6 or equivalent’

Overall, the cover letter should be no longer than 1,250 words. In the event that we receive a high number of applications, we will shortlist based on the lead competency – analytical skills.

For any questions associated with this opportunity, please contact hiring manager Patrick Rigby (Patrick.Rigby@ukri.org).

Benefits

Please click here for more details on the benefits of working for UKRI https://www.discover.ukri.org/benefits-of-working-at-ukri/index.html

Further application guidance

Write examples in your cover letter that demonstrate you meet the key behaviours.

We recommend you consider each of the key behaviours (including analytical skills and management of a portfolio) described above in turn, providing a clear example of how you demonstrate each. It is advisable that you apply the STAR approach when describing behaviours: situation, task, action and result.

As an example, suppose “Communicating and influencing” is one of the behaviours that you have been asked to provide evidence for. By looking at this behaviour for ‘Grade 7 and Grade 6 or equivalent’, you’ll have an idea of some examples of this behaviour. In your cover letter you should provide evidence that demonstrates some or all of the various aspects of this behaviour. Your evidence will tell us the situation, the task and then summarise what you did that provides evidence of this behaviour, and finally the result of your action.

Please note that we select people to interview based on the strength of the evidence supplied in the cover letter. We recommend that you invest some time in making your cover letter as strong as possible and use it to demonstrate your analytical skills and experience. The cover letter is the main source of evidence for the sift of applications - not the CV.