Research Officer - Irregular Migration

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports.

The Digital and Innovation Group sits at the heart of the Home Office. The group ensures the best evidence and analysis are used to address the strategic issues facing the department. We also provide the science, technology, data, and international insights and collaboration capabilities needed to drive delivery.

We have two high-profile opportunities for Research Officers to join the Near Neighbour and Upstream Irregular Migration teams within the Immigration System Statistics and Refugees Analysis & Insight (ISSRAI) unit. This unit sits within the Digital and Innovation Group, with these roles funded by the Border Security Command. The roles support the evaluation of the Border Security Command and International Taskforces, and UK’s contribution towards the European Migration Network (EMN).

You will help deliver high-quality analysis and insight to inform decisions on high-profile policy challenges, and shape Home Office priorities. Working creatively and collaboratively with operational colleagues, stakeholders and other analysts, you will also have opportunities to develop your skills and career within the Home Office and the wider Government Social Research Service.

Job description

Supporting Senior Research Officers, you will deliver research and evaluation to understand the impact of Border Security Command (BSC) interventions to tackle organised immigration crime (OIC) upstream, in Europe and within the UK. This includes analysing internal monitoring data, supporting primary research for process and impact evaluations, and communicating findings to policy and operational colleagues.

You will also support the UK’s contribution to the EMN. This may include managing access to the EMN portal and co-ordinating and shaping the UK’s analytical position on cross-European migration-related analytical and policy queries.

Leading work to strengthen the evidence base on irregular migration, you will identify key gaps and supporting primary research to address the most pressing priorities. Building strong relationships with international, operational, policy and intelligence colleagues will be central to this work.

The roles are open to existing badged Government Social Researchers (GSR) and applicants who are not yet GSR members, including those outside government.

Key responsibilities:

• Support evaluations of interventions to tackle organised immigration crime, upstream and in Europe.
• Strengthen the evidence base on irregular migration, by prioritising evidence gaps and supporting primary research to address them.
• Co-ordinate input from Home Office teams to EMN commissions, including managing access to the EMN portal.
• Analyse and synthesise evidence into clear summaries and narratives for analytical and non-analytical colleagues, including contributions to the quarterly report on irregular migration trends.
• Build and manage relationships with internal stakeholders including policy leads, operational teams, intelligence analysts and external stakeholders, including EMN counterparts, the international analytical community, academia.
• With support from senior analysts, advise Ministers and senior officials on research and analysis findings.

Working Pattern

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis. However, compressed hours are available.

Eligibility

These roles are open to both external candidates who meet the requirements and existing Government Social Research (GSR) members. If the latter please indicate clearly on your application form.

For external applicants, Civil Service badging is used to designate people presently employed in the Civil Service who meet the criteria for that profession at a particular grade level. If you have analytical skills but no formal Civil Service analytical profession badging, you are most welcome to apply. Successful applicants will become badged members of the profession.

Applicants must meet the qualification requirements for the profession as set out below under Qualifications.

Person specification

Essential criteria:

• Strong experience in designing and delivering qualitative and quantitative research and analytical projects. This includes analysing data, reviewing literature and presenting research findings.
• Strong organisational skills, including experience of balancing a busy and varied workload.
• Ability to co-ordinate research requests, including effective management and tracking of requests for evidence, data and policy insights and contributing to the development of efficient team's processes.
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including ability to build relationships and work as part of a team to deliver at pace.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts effectively to a wide range of technical and non-technical audiences to ensure maximum impact.
• Experience of managing or supporting the delivery of impactful analytical projects from inception to conclusion, to meet customer needs.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience of working or studying in irregular migration, organised immigration crime, international or European contexts.
• Experience or knowledge of evaluation, particularly in complex contexts.

Qualifications

You must be either: a badged member of the Government Social Research profession, or Route 1 - hold an undergraduate degree, at a minimum of 2.2 in a social science subject, around a third of which comprised of modules on social science methods; Route 2 - hold a 2:2 undergraduate degree in any subject and have at least four years' relevant experience as a practising social researcher.

Benefits

In addition to your salary, a career with the Home Office offers a range of benefits, including:

• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office.
• Successful candidates may be eligible for an annual Recruitment and Retention Allowance of £2,000, subject to Head of Profession approval.
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service to 30 days.
• Eight days of public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.