Research & Evaluation Assistant

This is an exciting opportunity to join the dynamic, multi-disciplinary team at the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre) as a Research Assistant. This is an important role within the CSA Centre, to help develop, understand and embed evidence-informed improvements in the response to child sexual abuse.

About the role:

The CSA Centre aims to inform and improve policy and practice at local and national levels by identifying, generating and sharing high quality evidence on what works to prevent and tackle child sexual abuse, and our extensive research, evaluation and monitoring activity is central to that mission.

As a Research Assistant, you will support a wide range of research and evaluation activities, working closely with the wider Research and Evaluation Team and other colleagues across the CSA Centre.

This is an excellent opportunity for someone looking to develop their research career in a supportive, meaningful and impactful environment. You will contribute to projects that improve the understanding of the scale and nature of child sexual abuse and strengthen the evidence base on effective responses.

Key aspects of the role include:

• Supporting the planning and delivery of research and evaluation projects
• Conducting literature reviews and supporting evidence synthesis
• Maintaining accurate research records, bibliographies and project documentation
• Assisting with monitoring and evaluation activity, including surveys and reporting
• Providing administrative and coordination support to ensure projects run smoothly
• Supporting compliance with research ethics, governance and data protection requirements
• Undertaking Equality Impact Assessments with project team members

You will work collaboratively with internal teams and external stakeholders, contributing to outputs that are accessible and useful to practitioners, policymakers and partners.

We are looking for a motivated and organised individual with an interest in research and evaluation in social policy or related fields. You should be comfortable working with data, able to communicate findings clearly, and capable of managing a varied workload.

CSA Centre roles are currently funded until 31 March 2027, in line with our current grant funding arrangements. This will be reviewed in late 2026, as future funding for the CSA Centre from 2027/28 onwards is confirmed.

About us

We are the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA Centre). Our aim is to reduce the impact of child sexual abuse through improved prevention and better response. To tackle child sexual abuse we must better understand its causes, scope, scale and impact.

Established since 2017, we are a multi-disciplinary team that is primarily funded by the Home Office, hosted by Barnardo's and we work closely with key partners from academic institutions, local authorities, health, education, police and the voluntary sector. We're proudly independent and our team will challenge any barriers, assumptions, taboos and ways of working that prevent us from increasing our understanding and improving our approach to child sexual abuse.

We bring about change by:

• Collating and analysing existing research, policy, practice and the real experiences of those affected, and filling the gaps we identify with new research, insights and analysis;
• Using that evidence and insight to challenge and improve existing policy and practice, develop new approaches and increase everyone's knowledge and confidence to more effectively tackle the issue.

This role is home-based with regular travel required, usually to London.

Salary: £27,554.00 – £29,799.00 plus Office at Home Allowance - £312 per annum

The CSA Centre acknowledges that tackling child sexual abuse can feel challenging but is incredibly rewarding and positive when making a difference. Our open working environment ensures that there is support for all employees, across the team and with access to a therapist, if needed. Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of this further.

We believe in creating equality of opportunity in the workplace and supporting people to manage their work-life balance; we are therefore are open to offering flexible working arrangements.

The CSA Centre is committed to having a diverse and inclusive workforce. We actively encourage applications from disabled candidates and candidates from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, as they are currently under-represented at the CSA Centre.

When completing your application please refer to your skills, knowledge and experience in relation to the Person Specification and Job Description.

Closing date: 13th July with interviews 6th & 7th August 2026

Although this contract has a permanent status, please be aware that this post is subject to funding currently to 31st March 2027 and therefore should this funding not be extended further, you may be subject to a redundancy consultation or a TUPE arrangement. This contract is due to expire on 31st March 2027.

Please note due to the high volume of applications for some posts, this advert might close before the displayed closing date.  We recommend that you apply for this role as soon as possible