Social researcher

About the role

This occupation is found in the public, private and third sector organisations, from small through to large employers, including central and local government, research organisations, charities, and academia.

The broad purpose of the occupation is to provide robust research and analysis that forms the foundation for social policy development, implementation, and evaluation, impacting important decisions that seek to ensure the best possible investment of public money and outcomes for members of society. Social researchers use a range of research and analysis methods, advise on research designs, assess the appropriateness of different methodologies, and evaluate the quality of evidence and apply structured thinking to critically assess problems, drawing on their social research expertise and knowledge to evaluate the strengths and limitations of different research approaches.

In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with internal teams such as other researchers, economists, statisticians, methodologists, operations, policymakers, procurement, finance, and IT. They also interact with external stakeholders, including customers, collaborators, service providers, research participants and other members of the public. Building and maintaining relationships is critical to the social researcher role; they support and oversee colleagues during all stages of the research process and work with a range of colleagues, customers, and stakeholders.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for a variety of duties such as systematic evidence reviews, writing or contributing to proposal development, design, and implementation of qualitative and quantitative research according to ethical principles, developing primary data collection tools (such as surveys, in-depth interviews and focus groups), managing and monitoring fieldwork and controlled trials, data management and quality control, data analysis using specialist software packages, reporting, dissemination, the synthesis of research findings, and the overall project management of research. Evidence from these activities is used to brief policymakers and customers, to provide informative and timely insights to inform decision making. Typically, social researchers work independently leading on some elements of research and as part of the wider research team on other duties. A social researcher reports directly to their line manager, who will be a more senior colleague within their team. They may have staff management and/or budgetary responsibilities.

Social researchers must comply with the appropriate information security standards, GDPR, ethical standards, legal guidance, and other best practice guidance within their organisation. They may be required to obtain DBS clearance and/or other security clearances to carry out primary data collection or to access sensitive data. Social researchers are expected to have an awareness of the budget and costs of their projects and flag any concerns to the project lead. They may be office-based, work remotely or in a hybrid working environment. They are sometimes required to travel to attend meetings or training, to carry out data collection or to train interviewers.