Research and Insight Officer

Research and Insight Officer

Job Summary

• Contract Type: Temporary
• Working Pattern: Part time
• Advert Start Date: 30/07/2026
• Advert End Date: 12/08/2026 23:59
• Salary: £35,412 - £39,152 (pro rata) pay award pending
• Hours per week: 15
• Job Category: Youth / Community / Leisure Services
• Vacancy ID: 300266
• Employment Location: Your normal place of work is Spennymoor
• Post Number: REG26-125
• Number of posts: 1
• Closing date: 12 Aug

Further Information

Temporary 15 hour post for 6 months

What Is Involved?

The Research and Insight officer will play a key story telling and sense making role across the developing system in County Durham, gathering learning from different partners, surfacing patterns and shared understandings, and translating practice-based evidence into insight that can be understood locally and nationally.

You will help connect what's happening on the ground with wider research, evidence and frameworks, including Sport England priorities and the National Evaluation and Learning Partnership (NELP).

You will coach and support colleagues and partners to build their confidence and capability in evaluative thinking, helping them ask better questions, notice what's changing, make sense of complexity, and use evidence as part of everyday decision-making. Rather than owning all the evaluation, you will help embed learning and evaluation within the work itself, across places and themes.

We encourage you to contact George Richardson via email at george.richardson@durham.gov.uk to arrange an informal discussion about the role.

What Will I Need?

• Educated to degree level in a related area or equivalent experience in research, data collection and analysis
• Significant previous experience of leading on the monitoring and evaluation of projects and conducting relevant research
• Experience of collating data, research and insight to support project/organisational objectives
• Experience of presenting insight and preparing reports for senior management and a range of partners/stakeholders
• Experience of creating Monitoring Evaluation and Learning frameworks for projects or programmes
• Experience of creating dashboards/databases of information, maintaining and analysing along with producing reports
• Experience of presenting data research and insight from numerous sources to help inform and influence decision making

Please refer to the attached Person Specification for the full criteria.

Interviews

Interviews will be held on 18 August 2026.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that can show they meet all the essential criteria and have indicated they have a disability, are a looked after young person, care leaver or a veteran.

Our Offer to You

We offer a competitive rewards package that includes attractive salaries, a generous annual leave entitlement of 27 days (rising to 32 after five years' continuous local government service), membership of the excellent contributory career average Local Government Pension Scheme, and a range of flexible working arrangements including hybrid working (home and office) where applicable.

Rewards and benefits are subject to individual terms and conditions.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We are a proud equal opportunities employer and believe a diverse workforce brings fresh ideas and drives service improvement. We welcome applications from everyone and make employment decisions based on skills and ability. As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively encourage applications from disabled and neurodivergent people and offer support throughout the recruitment process.

How to Apply

Please note, we do not accept CVs. All applications must be submitted online via the Northeast Jobs portal. Use the 'Person Specification' section of the form to clearly demonstrate how you meet the essential (and where possible, desirable) criteria. Applications that do not evidence the essential requirements will not be shortlisted.

Please visit our website to understand our position on using AI to support your application and for guidance on completing your application.

If you require assistance when applying for this role, please contact our Recruitment Helpdesk on 03000 26 27 27, (option 5) or via email RecruitmentREG@durham.gov.uk

All correspondence relating to your application will be sent from donotreply@northeastjobs.org.uk. Kindly check your spam/junk folder regularly to ensure you don't miss any updates.

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• Educated to degree level in a related area or equivalent experience in research, data collection and analysis
• Significant previous experience of leading on the monitoring and evaluation of projects and conducting relevant research
• Experience of collating data, research and insight to support project/organisational objectives
• Experience of presenting insight and preparing reports for senior management and a range of partners/stakeholders
• Experience of creating Monitoring Evaluation and Learning frameworks for projects or programmes
• Experience of creating dashboards/databases of information, maintaining and analysing along with producing reports
• Experience of presenting data research and insight from numerous sources to help inform and influence decision makingPlease refer to the attached Person Specification for the full criteria.
  
  We offer a competitive rewards package that includes attractive salaries, a generous annual leave entitlement of 27 days (rising to 32 after five years' continuous local government service), membership of the excellent contributory career average Local Government Pension Scheme, and a range of flexible working arrangements including hybrid working (home and office) where applicable.
Explore the full range of rewards and benefits on our website Rewards and benefits are subject to individual terms and conditions.