Evaluation Officer

Posted by: Office For Students

Employed By: Office For Students

Job Title: Evaluation Officer role

Salary: £36,430 - £37,362 plus generous Civil Service pension (defined benefit scheme) 

Contract: Full-time

Location: Bristol

Application Deadline: 16 June 2025 Noon

We’re looking for an evaluation practitioner/social researcher who’s excited about bringing their expertise to the Office for Students (OfS), to help ensure that higher education provides a fulfilling experience for every student!  

Our evaluation team is committed to our mission to support the OfS to celebrate and use evaluation to make a positive difference to students.  
If this type of role as an evaluation champion and researcher sounds like you, we’d love you to apply to come and work with us!
About us

The Office for Students (OfS) exists to ensure that English higher education offers the best experience and the best value - for students, for taxpayers, for the economy and for the public good. We are the independent regulator of higher education in England – we regulate higher education on behalf of all students. Our mission is to ensure that every student, whatever their background, has a fulfilling experience of higher education that enriches their lives and careers. We have high ambitions and offer great opportunities to get involved in bringing that vision to life.  

About the role
As an Evaluation Officer, you will work with an Evaluation Manager to scope, run and commission evaluations, providing expert advice on priority evidence projects, and working to champion a strong culture of evaluative thinking in the OfS. Our evaluations are typically impact and/or process evaluations, with a strong focus on theories of change and theory-based approaches, and use of mixed-methods. You may do a mix of managing commissioned suppliers and conducting our own data collection and analysis.  

Your role will include building relationships and engaging stakeholders and ensuring evaluation findings are translated into impact. You will facilitate discussions and learning / reflection exercises, deliver internal training, look for ways to share our work to maximise its impact, and look at how to build evaluation into the OfS’s ways of working. You’ll be constantly developing your own knowledge of relevant research and evaluation and sharing this to build the knowledge of the team and wider colleagues. You’ll support the management of evaluation projects and workstreams, ensuring we deliver high quality and on time.

About you
We are looking to recruit someone with relevant social research and/or evaluation experience who is passionate about using evidence to improve practices and further impact. Fitting with the culture of our team, we are also looking for someone who values working collaboratively and places high importance on learning, development and the sharing of knowledge and expertise.

Essential criteria for candidates include:
• Experience in designing or conducting social/policy research activities, with good knowledge of research design approaches and the use of data in evaluation.  
• Excellent demonstrated project and time management skills, with the ability to work independently and balance multiple workstreams.
• Ability to work accurately with attention to detail, and deliver high quality outcomes under pressure and in the face of competing demands.  
• Clear and positive written and verbal communication.
• Ability to collaborate, build and manage effective relationships and support others.  
• A passion for evaluation, evidence and learning.

Benefits 
Our Total Reward Framework offers a range of benefits to suit your way of life: 
• 25 days’ annual leave plus bank holidays 
• Comprehensive learning and development – we’re invested in your future
• Generous Civil Service pension scheme
• Health benefits 

In addition, we take a proactive approach to professional development within the team, and will work with the successful candidate to seek opportunities to develop skills, knowledge and experience in the role.  

Working for us  
The OfS regulates the higher education sector on behalf of all students. We value diversity and the wealth of perspectives, experience and ideas that it brings to our work, and we strive to embed equality of opportunity in everything we do.  

We recruit based on fair and open competition and welcome applications from candidates regardless of age, disability, race and ethnicity, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and socio-economic background.    

Flexibility is important to the OfS, as we recognise that it can enable people to work more effectively. A set of organisation-wide principles shape our approach to flexible and hybrid working, which our teams then use as guidance on how they deliver their business goals. This would usually mean working from the office for two days in a typical week.  

To attract the widest possible field of qualified applicants, flexible working, for example job share and part time working, apply to this role.  

Closing date for applications: Monday 16 June at noon