Senior Research & Evaluation Officer

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

Are you an experience social researcher or analyst with skills in social research, evaluation and data analysis?

Can you analyse a range of information and evidence from range of different sources to make inform decision making?

Would you like to shape ATE’s first social research and evaluation programme?

If so, then we would love for you to apply!

Active Travel England (ATE) government’s new executive agency responsible for making walking, wheeling and cycling the preferred choice for everyone to get around. We are supporting Local Authorities raise the standards of walking and cycling infrastructure, delivering the government’s ambitious vision for half of all trips in England’s towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030.

Robust data and analysis are at the heart of our decision-making. Our multi-disciplinary analytical team is responsible for providing the evidence base and articulate how investment in active travel infrastructure and behavioural change programmes help tackle some of the most challenging issues we face as a society – improving health and wellbeing, addressing climate change, tackling inequality and improving local air quality.

This is an exciting opportunity to shape and deliver ATE’s first social research and evaluation programme. You will work with ATE’s research and evaluation lead to build and maintain the evidence base on what works and ensuring that the user perspective is central to decision-making. This is a broad and varied role that will involve design and delivery of research and evaluation projects that will provide timely, actionable insights based on robust, high-quality evidence. You will scope and lead delivery of a programme of social research and evaluation that will inform investment decisions and operational activities in ATE.

The postholder will be responsible for commissioning and managing medium-large scale projects through third party suppliers, collecting and delivering smaller projects in-house.

The analysis that you will provide is critical to ensuring that ATE understands what initiatives to invest in and where to focus investment to meet its strategic objectives and improves value for money from our investments in communities. Your research will be pivotal in making the case for future investment in active travel and demonstrating the contribution it makes to the economy, society, and the environment. It will have a prominent role in advice to Ministers and in negotiations with His Majesty’s Treasury and No.10.

Responsibilities

Key accountabilities of the role include:

• Design, specify, commission, deliver and disseminate social research and evaluation projects to inform operational, delivery and investment priorities in ATE. Within this you will balance timely delivery of findings against the need for reliable, good quality data on which decisions can be made.
• Bring together existing UK and international evidence about attitudes and behaviour towards active travel including the barriers and enablers to travelling by active modes, and the impact and effectiveness of different types of active travel interventions.
• Keep abreast of the latest research and evaluation evidence on active travel and in related fields, ensuring that key findings and their implications are communicated to colleagues across Active Travel England
• Ensure ATE has access to regular monitoring data about its investment portfolio. This includes designing data collection tools, overseeing data collection, analysing data from individual data sets, linking data and undertaking portfolio-level analysis, and using this to feed into ad hoc and regular progress reports and wider evaluation studies. You will also identify opportunities to improve data quality and consistency.
• Help to build research and evaluation capability within ATE, ensuring that non-researchers have access to and understand how to use and interpret different sources of evidence and take an evidence-based approach to their work.
• Support design, delivery and evaluation of pilots and trials to increase uptake and frequency of cycling, wheeling and walking drawing on behavioural science principles and methods.   

For an in-depth insight into the role please refer to the Role Profile.

You will be an experienced social researcher or as an analyst, with the requisite skills in social research, evaluation and data analysis. You will have knowledge and experience using quantitative and qualitative methods, and of a range of evaluation methods. You are someone who can analyse a range of information and evidence from a range of different sources to inform decision-making. You have excellent leadership skills and the ability to communicate and collaborate to ensure research and/or evaluation has had an impact on decision-making. 

Additional Information

A minimum of 40% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business, or carry out detached duty in another DfT workplace, will also count towards this level of attendance.

This post is open to individuals who meet the entry criteria to the Government Social Research (GSR) profession and came demonstrate capability at Senior Research Officer level as set out in the GSR Technical Framework.

Entry requirements 

There are two routes of entry into the GSR:

1. Relevant Qualification route:
   • Hold an undergraduate degree at a minimum of 2:1, or 2:2 with a postgraduate degree. 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
2. Professional Experience route:

• • Hold an undergraduate degree at a minimum of 2:1, or 2:2 with a postgraduate degree, in any subject, or a degree equivalent (e.g. an advanced Certificate or Diploma from MRS)
  • Plus at least 4 years’ social research practice experience. This 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.

See the GSR Membership and Eligibility Guidance for more details, including details of methods members are expected to have experience in (specified in Table 1 of the guidance).

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

• Working Together
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Managing a Quality Service

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

• Government Social Research Technical Framework (GSR) – TBC
• Government Social Research Technical Framework (GSR) – Using and Promoting Social Research

Being part of our brilliant Civil Service means you will have access to a wide range of fantastic benefits. We offer generous annual leave, attractive pension options, flexible working, inclusive working environments and much more to support a healthy work/life balance. 

Find out more about what it’s like working at the Department for Transport

Job contact :

• Name : Adrian Fletcher
• Email : Adrian.Fletcher@activetravelengland.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : DFTrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk