Evaluation Analyst - Maternity Cover

UKRI; Swindon; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 53,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a dynamic analysis team at a leading UK organization as an Evaluation Analyst. This role involves leading evaluations, improving practices, and embedding evidence-based decision-making. Flexible working options are available, promoting a diverse and inclusive environment.

Benefits

Defined benefit pension scheme

Excellent holiday entitlement

Employee shopping/travel discounts

Salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme

Qualifications

• Relevant experience in evaluation and social research.
• Ability to apply critical thinking skills to develop solutions.
• Effective communication skills for clear presentations.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support design and delivery of independent evaluations.
• Work closely with cross-council colleagues to improve evaluation.
• Embed evidence of impact within policy and programme design.

Skills

Analytical skills

Communication

Interpersonal skills

Critical thinking

Job description

UK Research & Innovation

Evaluation Analyst - Maternity Cover

Salary: £45,272
Hours: Full Time / Part Time (Min 0.8 FTE)
Contract Type:Fixed Term (12 Months)
Location: Polaris House, Swindon (*Employees currently based in London may retain this location when accepting this role*)
Grade: E

Closing Date:Sunday 1st June 2025

**Employees applying for any opportunity which may mean being away from your substantive role for a temporary period of time, please refer to the Recruitment Policy for further information in the first instance. If you are made an offer, please ensure you liaise with your Line Manager and the designated HR Team as soon as possible in order that implications of any move are clear and understood, prior to a move taking place.**

Job Overview:

This is an exciting opportunity to join the dynamic, multi-disciplinary analysis team working across the remit of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The UKRI Evaluation and Performance Team has a mission to maximise UKRI’s impact and performance by leading, supporting and delivering robust evaluation, performance measurement, and evidence, and using this to support learning and improvement in strategy, policy, and programme design across UKRI.

The work of the team is spread across three key objectives:

• To strengthen the evidence base on the impact of UKRI-wide activities, policy, and strategy by delivering effective evaluation and performance measurement.
• To improve the effectiveness of UKRI-wide evaluation and performance functionality by developing communities of practice, approaches, and resources.
• To increase the use of evaluation and performance evidence in decision making throughout UKRI and externally

We are a team committed to diversity and inclusion and welcome applications from anyone with the skills needed. The role is available to people working full-time, part-time or job-shares, and flexible working is the norm. The team works across the London and Swindon offices, a good proportion of the work can be done from home and there will be opportunities to visit colleagues in London/Swindon offices and other UKRI sites.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

We are committed to supporting each other’s personal and professional development and will support your learning and development ambitions in this role.

Key Responsibilities:

As an evaluation analyst you would be expected to work as part of the Evaluation and Performance Team, working flexibly to help others as required within a fast-paced, dynamic team environment.

The team works across a wide and changing remit in a flexible way, with each team member having ownership of key workstreams but also providing ad hoc support to other workstreams across UKRI. This provides variety, exposure and learning and development, while ensuring the evaluation needs of the organisation are supported.

More specifically, this role is likely to include (all or some of):

1. Leading and supporting design and delivery of independent evaluations of UKRI’s cross-cutting programmes, activities and policies.

• The UKRI evaluation team leads on delivering evaluations for a number of our cross-cutting programmes including the Strength in Places Fund, Strategic Priorities Fund, Industrial Strategies Challenge Fund, and the Future Leader Fellowships. As part of your role, you will have responsibility for one or more of these evaluations.
• You will be responsible for the day-to-day management of and liaison with evaluation contractors. As part of this you will need to provide clear direction to contractors, be a point of contact between contractors and UKRI and will need to manage the timely delivery of high-quality outputs to agreed deadlines, ensuring these are disseminated effectively with key stakeholders. You will need to problem solve when issues arise and exercise your judgement over when a problem, or potential problem, needs escalating.
• The team is also responsible for designing strategic evaluations of new funds. As part of your role, you will support the team in this design process

2. Working closely with cross-council colleagues across UKRI to improve UKRI’s ability to evaluate.

• The team works closely with UKRI’s Performance and Evaluation network to encourage best practice in evaluation activity across the organisation. As part of this you may be involved in the development and delivery of training or the development and communication of UKRI’s evaluation framework.
• All members of the team are responsible for championing and sharing M&E knowledge and best practice, building evaluation capability across UKRI and driving positive culture change. All team members also regularly provide reactive support across the organisation on high-priority evaluation work, for example, to develop logic models, devise evaluation plans, or taking part in steering and advisory groups.
• We work very closely with our council colleagues to do this, so good relationship building, and stakeholder management skills will be require

3. Working to embed evidence of impact and ‘what works’ within policy and programme design across UKRI.

• The team are also responsible for embedding what we learn within the team and across the evaluation community, to continue to improve evaluation best practice and, across the wider organisation to promote evidence-based policy making.
• This role will likely involve developing evidence syntheses and processes to disseminate and embed evidence of impact across UKRI and externally, deepening our understanding of what does and doesn’t work.

Person Specification:

(S) – Shortlisting Criteria (I) – Interview Criteria

Essential

• Relevant experience inevaluation and social research. This could include experience of designing, implementing and commissioning evaluations, and designing and developing monitoring frameworks, theories of change, logic models, surveys, interviews and methodologies for measuring the impact of R&I interventions. (S & I)
• Ability to apply critical thinking skills to develop and implement creative solutions to complex problems. (S & I)
• Effective communication skills with the ability to produce clear and well-structured documents or presentations and ability to communicate analysis effectively to non-analysts. (S & I)
• An ability to plan and prioritise your own work and the work of others to deliver successful outcomes, as well as respond flexibly to changing requirements as required. (S & I)
• Effective interpersonal skills, including working well in teams, with colleagues across UKRI and someone who can work confidently and effectively with external evaluation experts. (S & I)

Application Guidance:

Applicants are invited to submit a CV and a cover letter. The cover letter should include evidence to support your application for an analytical role and demonstrate your technical skills and your experience against the Civil Service behaviours allowing up to 250 words for each:

• Analytical skills
• Working together
• Communicating and influencing
• Making effective decisions

It is advisable that you apply the STAR approach when describing your experience against these behaviours. For each select a specific example from your career and use ~250 words to describe the (1) situation, (2) task, (3) action and (4) result. [Or CAR model: Challenge, Actions, Result]. For more information on the civil service behaviours and success profiles, see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles/success-profiles-civil-service-behaviours .

For the analytical skills any of the following apply:

• GES competency framework – level 2: 20221121_-_GES_Technical_Framework_-_Dasgupta.pdf (publishing.service.gov.uk)
• GSS competency framework – Senior Statistical Officer: Competency framework for the Government Statistician Group (GSG) – Government Analysis Function (civilservice.gov.uk)
• GSR competency framework – Research Officer: The Government Social Research Technical Framework - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
• GORS competency framework - GORS: Home - Recruitment - Skills (operational-research.gov.uk)

We will sift applications to determine suitability for interview, which will focus on the above competencies and the CV. If we receive a large number of applications sifting shall be done on the lead competency - Analytical skills.

About UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

UKRI launched in April 2018, UKRI is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Our organisation brings together the seven disciplinary research councils, Research England, which is responsible for supporting research and knowledge exchange at higher education institutions in England, and the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK. Together we build an independent organisation with a strong voice and vision to ensure the UK maintains its world-leading position in research and innovation. More information can be found atwww.ukri.org.

Choosing to come to work at UKRI means that you will have access to a whole host of benefits from a defined benefit pension scheme, excellent holiday entitlement, access to employee shopping/travel discounts and salary sacrifice cycle to work scheme. For more details, visit Benefits of working for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

The role holder will be required to have the appropriate level of security screening/vetting required for the role. UKRI reserves the right to run or re-run security clearance as required during the course of employment.

How we support EDI in the workforce

At UKRI, we believe that everyone has a right to be treated with dignity and respect, and to be provided with equal opportunities to thrive and succeed in an environment that enables them to do so. We also value diversity of thought and experience within inclusive groups, organisations and the wider community. For further information, please visit ‘How we support EDI in the workforce’.

Disability Confident Employer

As users of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the vacancy/ies. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

How to apply

Online applications only preferred for this role. Please submit a CV and covering letter which clearly outlines how you fulfil the criteria specified along with your motivation for UKRI and the role. Ensure that the job reference number is included in the filename description of each document uploaded. Note that failure to address the above criteria or submit an application without a covering letter may result in the application not being considered. Assessment will only be based upon the content of your submitted covering letter and CV and not the ‘experience’ section of the application.

UKRI seeks to ensure it creates and maintains a system of openness, fairness and inclusion – a collaborative, trusted environment, which is attractive to and accessible to everyone who is interested in developing their career with us.