Research officer jobs in London, greater london

The Trust is recruiting a creative and committed Research and Policy Officer to join our team. Reporting to one of the team’s Research and Policy Managers, the successful candidate will play a significant role in developing and preparing the Trust’s research and policy outputs, working across the core areas of the Sutton Trust’s work (early years, schools, apprenticeships, higher education and access to the workplace). This will include helping to produce original, data rich and policy relevant research reports, along with contributing to other Trust research projects. They will also support the policy and advocacy work of the Trust, including performing background research on topics relevant to educational inequality and social mobility as required.

Main duties

• To contribute, with colleagues, to several data-rich research reports accessible to practitioners and policy makers, over the course of the year, as agreed with the Research, Communications and Policy leadership team

• To support the Sutton Trust's programme of research and policy work, including:

  • Providing staff with background research, analysis and data on relevant topics

  • Producing literature reviews

  • Supporting research funding bids

  • Providing administrative support

• Working with Communications colleagues to develop messaging and content for disseminating and publicising reports

• Supporting advocacy work, as required, with MPs' staff, civil servants, special advisers and other policy makers

• Other duties as necessary from time to time

Person Specification

Essential

• Excellent analytical skills and understanding of research methods, primarily quantitative research, as well as literature/evidence reviews. This should include significant experience of using data analysis software such as SPSS/Stata/R/Python or equivalent

• A qualification in a social science or other numerate discipline, including statistics, mathematics, economics, computer science, data science or similar discipline in the social or natural sciences at undergraduate level, or comparable experience

• Two years' experience working in research in a professional or academic environment (e.g., PhD, post-doc)

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

• High degree of initiative and the ability to take responsibility for projects

• Personable, flexible and discreet; able to fit into a busy, small team in a fast-paced policy environment

• Sympathetic to the aims of the Trust and its mission to address educational disadvantage

• Eligible to work in the UK (see here for information about right to work)

Desirable

• Experience of conducting research using administrative datasets (e.g., National Pupil Database) or longitudinal datasets (e.g., Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset, Understanding Society, Next Steps)

• Knowledge of one or more of our priority policy areas (early years, schools, apprenticeships, higher education and access to the workplace), and the wider education policy environment in England

• Strong understanding of government and the public policy environment

• Experience working within or an understanding of the not-for-profit sector

• Experience in education (for example, as a teacher or in another front-line educational role), education policy or a closely related field

• A postgraduate qualification in a numerate discipline (see above)

Terms of Appointment

• Contract: Full-time, permanent

• Salary: £32,000 - £38,000 per annum

• Working location: Minimum of 2 office days per week

• Office location: The Sutton Trust, 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP. Our home working policy gives staff the option to work from home for up to 60% of the time, with approval from their line manager.

• Hours: The standard working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and may also be required to attend events/meetings outside of their normal working hours during weekday evenings and occasionally at weekends

• A DBS check may be required

Interviews

Applications should reach us by 5pm, Friday 24th July, with first round interviews held over Zoom on Monday 10th August, and second round interviews held at our London offices on Monday 17th August.

Safeguarding statement

The Sutton Trust believes that a child, young person or vulnerable adult should never experience abuse of any kind. We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to keep them safe. Therefore all posts undergo a safer recruitment process, including but not limited to, disclosure of criminal records where necessary and eligibility to work in the UK. We have procedures in place to promote safeguarding and a safe culture at the Trust.

Contextual recruitment

The Trust is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity and that all applicants receive equal consideration for employment. We strongly encourage individuals from all backgrounds, including those underrepresented at present at the Trust, to apply for this role. As such we particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities, Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ and from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds. We are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming place to work and know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for the young people we support.

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates throughout our recruitment process and during employment.

We also operate contextual recruitment at the Sutton Trust. Our application process gives you the option to include information about your background, such as whether you were eligible for free school meals, whether your parents went to university, or whether you attended a state school. For more examples and information on contextual recruitment, please see our website.

Location (UK): Office Hybrid* - London / Sheffield
Hours: Full-time, 35 hours per week
Benefits: Read more about the excellent benefits we offer on our profile page
Travel: Some travel may be required with in the UK

Join us and use your skills, knowledge, passion and energy to help us achieve a future free from arthritis.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone with research experience to work within a team of experts in research strategy development, research delivery and research policy, to communicate the outputs of our research funding to diverse stakeholders across the charity.  

About the role

You will work within a dynamic and friendly team to help support our Research Programme Managers to develop and manage the Arthritis UK research portfolio. This will include collating and monitoring data from diverse sources to help provide oversight of our funded research. You will also work closely with other colleagues to translate our research outputs into a format that is clear and impactful to help teams across the charity achieve their strategic objectives. 

You will work across a diverse range of projects and will liaise with a wide range of teams from across the charity to help us to tell the story of our research investment. 

About you

If your knowledge, skills and experience include the following then we’d love to hear from you:

• A scientific degree or equivalent level of experience in medical research via the charity, commercial, health, higher education or publishing sectors. 
• High-quality verbal and written communication skills including being able to communicate complex information and requirements to a wide range of audiences and stakeholders. 
• A flexible and collaborative approach: able to work closely and adaptively with immediate team and collaboratively across the organisation. 
• Good information technology skills, including effective database/PubMed/internet search techniques and significant experience of using Microsoft Office Packages. 
• Proven ability to manage multiple projects, with the ability to prioritise and meet deadlines independently, including rapid turnaround requests. 
• Experience in a medical research environment. 
• Knowledge or experience of the research application, award and monitoring process 

*As a hybrid worker the expectation is that you will spend around 40% of your working time in our office spaces or working in community settings. As an inclusive employer we will consider home-based working for anyone where office-based hybrid working would be a barrier to being able to work for us, for example for someone living with a long-term health condition or disability.

• Would you like to be a part of a specialist pilot programme to benefit people living with both dementia and cancer?
• Could you lead learning, engagement and research elements of a Dementia-Inclusive Cancer Support Pilot?
• Are you a skilled facilitator able to engage diverse groups with particular experience?

Be part of our new service supporting people living with cancer and dementia

People living with both cancer and dementia face significant unfairness:

• Cancer pathways are not designed for cognitive impairment
• Dementia makes it harder to understand information, attend appointments, and make decisions
• Individuals are often excluded from decisions and disengage from care
• Carers face high stress navigating fragmented systems with little tailored support

Our solution: A community-led, learning-based pilot that combines personalised support with system improvement.

The postholder will establish and facilitate a Participatory Learning Group involving people with lived experience, carers and professionals, ensuring that learning from the project informs service development, system improvement and future practice.

The role will gather, analyse and communicate insight from participants and frontline delivery, helping generate evidence about what works in supporting people living with dementia and cancer.

We are looking for a skilled Facilitator who:

• Has experience of community engagement, participation, co-production or qualitative research.
• Has experience gathering and analysing qualitative information and ability to identify themes and learning from complex information.
• Has excellent written communication and report-writing skills.

Training and development opportunities are available to all staff.

Full details about the role, including key responsibilities, can be found within the job pack. We encourage applicants to contact us for an informal chat to discuss the opportunity and working at Age UK Sutton. You will be able to view the job pack once you hit apply. 

Hours: 21 hours per week

Salary: £18,300 pro rata (£30,500 actual)

Location: Sutton (community venues, partner organisations and hybrid

working)

Contract: Fixed Term (Grant funded - 2 years)

Closing date for applications: 12th July 2026

Interview date: 20th/21st/23rd July

If you cannot attend this interview date, please let us know when you submit your application. If we invite you to interview, we will always do our best to find a suitable alternative date. We recognise that everyone is unique and may have particular needs during the recruitment process. Therefore if there is anything you would like to discuss in relation to that process, please contact us. We strive to make our recruitment process fully accessible to all applicants, including those with a disability, long term condition or anyone who may otherwise require additional support or reasonable adjustments. An applicant’s disclosure of their disability will not disqualify nor adversely affect the candidate’s chances of being short listed or offered the post.