Civil service researcher/analyst

[Rosie55]

I'm a slightly disillusioned mid-career academic thinking about alternatives and have been looking at Civil Service roles as analyst or researcher. I really like research but am in the Humanities so don't have skills or experience in quantitative methods - still less data analysis.

Does anyone know about researcher or analyst roles in the Civil Service: how hard they are to get, whether they'd look at a career changer, and what specific skills are needed? I'd be happy to retrain but wouldn't be able financially to manage a whole new undergraduate degree. Would an MA in research methods be needed for all roles, or only for specialist social researchers? Would that be enough, or would I need work experience too?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

I am in a similar position - I would also like to become a data analyst and do actually have a lot of experience analysing data and using different analysis packages. I would love another degree, but can't afford to go back to university. I have spent some time going through the job descriptions/person specifications on the civil service website and compiling lists of what is mentioned.

They tend to ask for intimidating things! Examples:

• Know how to make complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences.
• Collect, collate, cleanse, synthesise and interpret data to derive meaningful and actionable insights using the most appropriate techniques.
• Use coding languages such as Python/Pyspark/SQL.
• Using code to manipulate and quality test data according to complex methodological needs.

I can make lovely graphs, do basic stats and have played around a bit with python, but it seems as though there is a big gap between my experience and what is required.

I am not eligible for an apprenticeship 🙁. At the moment it seems like the best option might be applying to the graduate scheme for 2023 (think applications open in september) OR applying for an analyst role and hoping they offer a more junior role.

Thanks for that useful information DataFlop. You're much better qualified than I am. Good luck with the application if you decide to go for it.