Head of Research Support Service on Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS)

Full-time- 35 hours per week 

Fixed-term- 12 months

The Opportunity:

The Longitudinal Studies Centre Scotland (LSCS) wishes to recruit for a new role as Head of Research Support Service on Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS). This exciting opportunity is a dual role to (i) managing a LSCS staff and to (ii) provide research support to academic users of the SLS dataset including leading on and managing research project design, data support and statistical advice. You will possess significant management and data skills, be exceptionally organised, agile, work effectively to tight deadlines and be proactive with an innovative approach to continuous improvement.

We are seeking a motivated researcher manager with good quantitative research skills to work with us within the Longitudinal Studies Centre Scotland (LSCS). Our main LSCS project is supporting the Scottish Longitudinal Study (SLS), a large-scale linkage study created using data from Scottish administrative and statistical sources, including Census data and Vital Events data. Within the LSCS you will help facilitate research access to the data holdings, providing research support over the full lifecycle of an external researcher’s access to the service. At the LSCS and within it the SLS Development and Support Unit (SLS-DSU) we specialise in data creation, linkage and data access and on supporting the research use of the SLS and promoting its research potential. Core responsibilities for this post include line management of a small team, research planning and project development; methodological support officer support of data, statistical computing; statistical disclosure control, promotion and enhancing impact of the SLS data. 

This post is advertised as full-time (35 hours per week, however, we are open to considering requests for part-time working of 30 hours per week). The post is front-facing office based full time. Fixed term for approximately 12 months, with an end date of 30 September 2025.

Your skills and attributes for success:

• Degree in relevant specialism (e.g. statistics, social science, health or demography or other discipline with a large quantitative analysis component). 
• Demonstrable experience of data analysis of survey, health or administrative data. 
• Line management and programme management experience.
• Excellent communication and teamwork skills, along with ability to produce working papers and other documents and reports. 
• Ability to learn new stats packages as required particularly in the R statistical language (e.g. the eDataShield and SYNTHPOP packages) and to use effectively to support projects.

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