Public Affairs - Senior Research Executive / Research Project Management

Are you looking to develop a career in within one of the world’s largest Research Organisations?
The Trade, Innovation and Enterprise team within Ipsos Public Affairs is a fast-growing team of social researchers and evaluators. We work to understand and shape the interactions between businesses, government and the public. We carry out a wide range of qualitative and quantitative projects. These address some of the most important challenges facing society, including:

• How and why businesses grow and prosper
• The challenges faced by different types of businesses, such as SMEs, or those in creative and tech industries
• How the UK works and trades with other countries, and what businesses and the UK public think about this
• How UK organisations can meet their Net Zero commitments

Our work has influenced policies (e.g. around the NI Protocol) and strategies (e.g. the National AI Strategy), strengthened the evidence base for various business tax reliefs (e.g. Video Games Tax Relief) and supported new businesses to deal with challenges like cyber crime.

The role…
This vacancy is for a Senior Research Executive with experience of managing research projects, with support from a project director.

This is an exciting opportunity for a quantitative or mixed-methods researcher with experience of project management to run high profile studies which influence government policy and decisions. You will work with a range of research participants, including businesses, industry bodies, policy experts and the general public. You will be able to lead small project teams, where you will be the first point of contact for our clients, and have the chance to delegate to junior team members. You will also work on large multi-strand projects, where you will get to learn from experienced project directors, and other senior colleagues providing support and guidance. You will have the opportunity to help grow our key client accounts.

What will I be doing?
You will be able to work closely with our associated policy teams, the Energy and Environment team, and Transport and Infrastructure team, as well as our evaluation, economic analysis, stats analysis and qualitative methods experts in Ipsos Public Affairs.

Our team is a diverse and exciting place to work within Ipsos Public Affairs. We run regular knowledge sharing sessions across projects, have dedicated wellbeing leads within the team, and have regular social activities.
The overarching responsibilities, and the key opportunities this role offers, include:

• Managing smaller quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation projects from inception through to the final reports and presentations, or supporting strands of larger projects
• Helping us win exciting new work and develop your proposal writing skills. You will have the chance to work on short proposals or contribute to larger ones, with the support and guidance of senior colleagues
• Support growth of our key client accounts, through your project work and client account management
• Supporting the development of our team in a range of ways. This might include taking on specific support roles within the team (e.g. supporting us to monitor and grow specific client accounts)

Specific responsibilities might include:

• Drafting questionnaires and topic guides to meet client/study objectives (for review by project directors)
• Drafting fieldwork materials such as invitation letters, interviewer instructions and recruitment materials
• Moderating in-depth interviews and discussion groups
• Drafting quantitative data specifications and checking data files (e.g. samples or data tables) to be error-free
• Developing qualitative analysis frameworks
• Effectively managing relationships with suppliers and our internal operations colleagues, to ensure successful qualitative recruitment or survey fieldwork across a range of methods (like telephone and online)
• Drafting analysis plans and report outlines with director support, and subsequently helping to create narrative-driven reports and presentations
• Building and managing effective client relationships through strong communication with individual client teams and their stakeholders (e.g. policymakers)
• Learning how to monitor projects’ financial progress
• Ensuring projects are delivered to time, through effective project planning (including drafting and following timetables) and delegation

What do I need to bring with me?

• Experience of managing quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation projects from inception through to the final reports and presentations, or supporting strands of larger projects
• Proven experience to comfortably manage smaller projects, or support larger ones, and deliver day-to-day
• Excellent attention to detail and organisational skills, including the ability to follow complex processes
• Time management skills, working across multiple projects, prioritising tasks efficiently and meeting deadlines
• Any previous experience writing questionnaires, discussion guides, and fieldwork materials (e.g. recruitment screeners)
• Ability to interrogate quantitative and qualitative data to find insights and narratives
• An interest in our policy areas, such as trade, enterprise and/or economic policy
• Ability to work well in teams
• Confident and clear written and verbal communication skills, with a high level of accurate use of English, and the ability to write in a variety of styles
• Curiosity and drive to help to grow our business

Desirable:

• Knowledge or experience of bidding for new work and the research proposals process
• Experience of contributing to primary research components of wider evaluation studies
• Awareness or use of analysis software, such as NVivo, SPSS or other statistics packages

About us…
We are one of the world’s largest research companies and currently the only one primarily managed by researchers. With offices in 90 markets, Ipsos brings together research, implementation, methodological, and subject-matter experts from around the world, combining thematic and technical experts globally with local knowledge to deliver top-quality research.
Our culture is unique - we have the entrepreneurial spirit and quirkiness of a small boutique, but we also have the resources, scale and diversity of a large global agency. We have more bright, friendly, hard-working and enthusiastic people, from more backgrounds, with more interests, skills and experiences to learn from. Our values are based on our diverse cultural backgrounds, helping us to be responsive, client-focused and flexible.
We are committed to equality, treating people fairly, promoting a positive and inclusive working environment and ensuring we have diversity of people and views. We recognise that this is important for our business success - a more diverse workforce will enable us to better reflect and understand the world we research and ultimately deliver better research and insight to our clients. We understand the importance of choice and offer a blended work environment, office and work from home. We also realise you may have commitments outside of work and will consider all flexible working applications - please highlight what you are looking for when you make your application.
If this is what you are looking for from your next role, we look forward to hearing from you!