Post-Doctoral Research Assistant

About us

About UCL Institute of Education

Founded in 1902, UCL Institute of Education has been shaping policy and helping government, organisations and individuals navigate a changing society for the last 120 years. We embrace collaboration and excellence to create a future that is inclusive and just and have been ranked number one for education every year since 2014 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject.

The Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) aims to advance UCL’s mission to address real-world challenges by generating rigorous, policy-relevant research that improves education and reduces inequalities across the life course. Bringing together experts across economics, psychology, sociology and education, the centre produces high-quality evidence on the drivers of social mobility and educational outcomes, ensuring that research has a meaningful impact on young people’s lives.

About the role

CEPEO is appointing a Research Assistant (RA) to work on two new projects for a period of 1.75 years.

The two projects are:

1) “Racial Inequalities In Access To Professional Careers – What Matters?” The project aims to understand how firms’ recruitment processes affect access to professional jobs and the implications of this for racial equity. This project is funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The role will involve working with the project team - led by Claire Tyler - to collect and analyse large scale job application data from employers using quantitative methods. Findings from the analysis will be written up in a project report, separate reports to employers, and in academic journal articles.

2) “School climate and pupil belonging, attendance and achievement” The project aims to understand how school culture affects belong and attendance and how this in turn affect pupil learning. This project is also funded by the Nuffield Foundation. The role will involve working with the project team - led by Sam Sims - to analyse large scale linked survey and administrative data from a multi-academy trust. Findings from the analysis will be written up in a project report and in academic journal articles.

The role will be 1.0 FTE (full time) for one year (April 2026 to March 2027). After March 2027 it will be at least 0.75 FTE until 30 December 2027 in the first instance.

About you

You will have a PhD in relevant area of quantitative social science (e.g., education, sociology, psychology, economics) as well as Master’s level training in quantitative research methods (or demonstrable comparable skills).

You will have the ability to conduct reproducible (using code) analyses using R or Stata (or similar) as well as the ability to communicate clearly in relation to sophisticated analyses of large datasets

Your application form should address all the person specification points and should clearly demonstrate how your skills and experience meet each of the criteria.

It is important that the criteria are clearly numbered and that you provide a response to each one.

Customer advert reference: B16-02021

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