Quantitative Research Associate
Job Description
Salary range: £32,226 - £36,875 per annum, plus benefits
Band: 5
Job type: Full-time (37.5 hours)
Contract period: Permanent
Reporting to: Senior Quantitative Research Associate
Team: Survey Coordination Centre in the Service Delivery Team
Location: Oxford/hybrid (up to full time from home, in line with Picker’s remote and home working policy)
About Picker
Picker is an Oxford-based charity with an international reputation as a key authority in the measurement and improvement of patient experience. Our mission is to make person centred health and social care a reality for everyone.
Our work is focused on measuring, understanding and improving the experiences of patients, service users and staff. To do this we design and run surveys for public and private health and social care organisations, as well as national bodies, voluntary sector and international healthcare providers. We conduct original research to understand people's experiences of care. And we provide training, tools and support to equip organisations to improve services and deliver more person centred care.
Service Delivery Team
Service Delivery provides tools and services that increase peoples’ ability to understand, measure and act upon experiences of care in order to improve its quality. The team works with a wide range of stakeholders, including providers, national bodies, academic institutions, and charities to develop and implement evaluation and improvement programmes that help to deliver person centred care.
The vacancy is situated within the Survey Coordination Centre, which is responsible for managing the design, management and analysis of surveys within the NHS’s national staff and patient survey programmes. The programmes are conducted on behalf of NHS England and the Care Quality Commission respectively, and include a range of large scale and high profile surveys that are typically coordinated centrally but administrated locally by NHS organisations. These surveys are amongst the largest of their kind in the world.
Purpose of the role
The successful candidate will report to a Senior Quantitative Research Associate and will work on the development and coordination of new and existing surveys as part of our Survey Coordination Centre in the Service Delivery Team. The post holder also disseminates results to various audiences, including clients, stakeholders, collaborators, and members of the public.
Duties and responsibilities
o Day to day project management of large scale national quantitative surveys including: Designing surveys and questionnaires using a variety of tools, and methodologies
Assisting in designing questionnaires and survey instruments and testing as appropriate, including cognitive testing, to ensure that all new products meet and deliver needs of the client and target group
Assisting in designing sampling strategies for surveys, advising on and making recommendations about survey modes and testing methodological changes and innovations.
o Client Management including:
o To ensure a full understanding of research requirements and that all commissioned projects are completed accurately and to agreed specification, standards and timescales, including:
o daily liaison with the client, responding to queries (internal and external), monitoring project progress and completion of tasks to meet required deadlines, escalating concerns/ risks to the Senior Quantitative Research Associate as required, attendance at and contribution to client meetings.
o Collating, managing and checking very large data sets, resolving data queries, responding to enquiries, and monitoring progress, to ensure that data collated are accurate and of the highest standard
O Preparing and delivering results from commissioned projects to various audiences ensuring an understanding of the subject and issues arising and enabling informed decision making, including
o Producing written and numeric outputs (including but not limited to research reports, blogs, infographics, and trade press articles), including undertaking basic secondary analysis of survey and other data, and present evidence and findings about complex and sometimes contentious subjects to a wide range of audiences, ensuring an understanding of the subject and issues arising and enabling informed decision making.
o Assisting in preparing proposals, tenders and quotations, coordinating input from colleagues as required, ensuring that all documents are accurate and produced to agreed standards and timescales.
o Carry out desk research, including literature reviews and scoping studies based on academic publications and grey literature.
o Provide professional advice to colleagues, clients and partners, referring to the Senior Quantitative Research Associate (in the first instance) as necessary, to enable the organisation to successfully complete projects to the highest standards.
o Build and maintain relationships with new and existing clients, external stakeholders, partners and collaborators, to ensure the organisation understands its clients’ current and future needs and clients remain up to date with the products and services available.
General Duties
Contributing to the work of Picker as a whole by:
o Fully engaging and participating in the achievement of Picker’s aims and objectives
o Developing new approaches, processes and methods to enhance Picker’s performance
o Promoting the sharing of knowledge and communications across teams within Picker; working closely with other teams to deliver projects and promote the use of survey findings.
o Ensuring compliance with all company policies, internal working practices and external regulatory requirements (e.g. Quality Assurance Framework, Data Protection Act, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 20252, Cyber Essentials, and MRS Code of Conduct).
Other reasonable duties as requested by line manager.
Person Specification
| Experience, knowledge and understanding | |
| Quantitative research experience with skills in questionnaire design, researchmethods, and data handing, analysis and reporting | E |
| Familiarity with and understanding of the core principles of quantitative research (i.e.understanding of the key considerations when selecting and developing amethodological approach to a question) | E |
| Knowledge and understanding of the variety of survey methodologies available tocollect data | E |
| Experience of developing and maintaining relationships with clients, externalstakeholders, collaborators or partners | E |
| Experience of writing proposals, tenders and quotations | D |
| An awareness of accessible research methods | D |
| Experience of developing new relationships and business opportunities | D |
| Experience of giving presentations and facilitating workshops | D |
| An interest in healthcare quality and person-centred care | D |
| Significant working knowledge of current data protection regulations, IsO 27001,isO 27701, IsO 20252, ethical requirements around research, and the provisions ofthe Health and Social Care Act relating to patient confidentiality and research (e.g.section 251) | D |
| Skills / Abilities | |
| Excellent project management skills with a track record in undertaking andmanaging survey research projects from commissioning through to completion, ontime, on budget and to total client satisfaction | E |
| Ability to build and maintain a network of relationships throughout the organisation, including with colleagues, and with external partners and stakeholders | E |
| Ability to present data and information to a wide range of audiences through formaland informal presentations, both written and oral | D |
| Excellent writing skills and a demonstrable ability to write to a high standard for arange of different audiences and to edit the work of others, including identifyingnovel/ innovative ways to present research or survey evidence to differentaudiences | E |
| A high degree of self-motivation and resourcefulness combined with a willingness toadopt a'hands-on' role | E |
| Ability to ensure own compliance with company polices, internal working practicesand external regulatory requirements, seeking advice where necessary | E |
| A methodical approach to work and excellent attention to detail | E |
| Ability to collate, analyse and interpret large volumes of qualitative and quantitativedata, draft reports, draw appropriate conclusions and make recommendations | E |
| Ability to analyse highly complex numerical and written data, assess options, drawappropriate conclusions and make recommendations | E |
| Analyses survey findings and produces presentation materials for client audiences | D |
| Ability to apply innovative thinking to identify how new survey methodologies couldbe beneficial to the organisation and its clients | E |
| Strongly numerate and confident in using, understanding, and reporting the resultsof statistical analysis | E |
| High level of competency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook | E |
| Competent user of at least one statistical software package (SPsS, Stata, R, SAS) | D |
| Ability to work collaboratively corporately and departmentally, and where necessarywith external suppliers and contacts | E |
| Ability to work to deadlines and tight timescales, managing time and adjustingpriorities accordingly | E |
| Ability to manage workload with frequent interruptions, multiple demands on timeand requests from stakeholders | E |
| Ability to work independently under managerial direction, seeking advice on policyor resource issues as required, and gain required approval at predetermined stagesof projects | E |
| Empathy with Picker and its aims | E |
| Qualifications | |
| Educated to degree level or equivalent in a relevant discipline | E |
E = essential D = desirable
Picker is committed to equality, diversity, and inclusion in all that we do. We welcome applicants from diverse communities and backgrounds and we are a Disability Confident committed employer.
All roles at Picker require a criminal record check. Picker will not automatically refuse to employ someone with a previous criminal conviction.
For further details, please contact the HR team by email hr@pickereurope.ac.uk
This job description is not contractual and is liable to change over time.