Office for National Statistics
Deputy Director of Social Surveys, Research & Production
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Job summary
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.
Social Surveys Directorate plays a central role in delivering the ONS mission through the design, collection and production of household survey data that underpin some of the UK’s most important economic and social statistics. Our work supports decision-making across government, business, academia and the wider public, and provides the evidence base for policy, operational delivery and public understanding on issues that matter nationally and locally.
The 2026 ONS Business plan prioritises improving the quality and trustworthiness of published statistics, providing timely and relevant data for decision-makers, and building a more efficient, resilient and adaptable organisation. For social surveys, that means stabilising and recovering the quality of our core surveys, completing the transformation of the Labour Force Survey, strengthening the long-term sustainability of our survey system and investing in the development of our people.
With around 2,000 colleagues, Social Surveys Directorate is one of the largest business areas in ONS. It brings together the leadership, operational capability and in-depth social research expertise needed to run and improve the UK’s largest and most complex social surveys.
This role is the Deputy Director (SCS1) for the Social Surveys Research and Production Division. The Division works in partnership with the following five Divisions:
- Social Surveys Field Collection
- Social Surveys Telephone and Ports Collection
- Social Surveys Strategy, Research and Innovation
- Social Surveys Transformation
- Social Surveys Central Division
The post holder will play an important leadership role in ensuring these interdependent parts of the system work together effectively to deliver high-quality survey data and support the wider strategic priorities of ONS. The role will report directly to Alex Lambert, Director for Social Surveys, who in turn reports to James Benford, Director General for Surveys and Economic Statistics
Job description
The purpose of the role is to lead the Social Surveys Research and Production (SSRP) Division. SSRP has responsibility for the current social survey portfolio, with the exception of the Transformed Labour Force Survey while it remains in development. The economic indicators and official statistics produced from these surveys are among the nation’s most important, informing decisions that affect every citizen and supporting the government’s management of the UK economy.
The Division sets the strategic direction for the portfolio and delivers high-quality datasets to meet user needs. With an end-to-end view of each survey, it engages users to understand requirements, leads survey design, commissions fieldwork, oversees operational performance, and prepares and quality assures the resulting data. It also leads continuous improvement across the portfolio and plays a central role in current ONS and Directorate priorities to recover core social survey quality and build a more sustainable survey system.
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To support core survey delivery and continuous improvement, the Division also operates a survey performance and management information service, develops and maintains data processing pipelines, and leads work to upgrade ONS data collection technology. SSRP delivers this work through close collaboration with other divisions in the Directorate and with colleagues across ONS.
As Deputy Director for Social Surveys Research and Production, you will lead the Division’s Grade 6 leadership team and provide clear direction across a broad and complex portfolio of survey delivery, improvement and specialist functions. You will oversee performance, quality, risk, resources and delivery across the Division, ensuring that business-as-usual outputs are delivered effectively while longer-term improvement activity is progressed in a controlled and sustainable way. You will build capability across the Division, invest in your people and support an inclusive, high-performing culture.
In this role you will oversee four Grade 6 areas:
- Living Costs and Food (LCF) Delivery and Development
- Finances, Opinions, Wealth, and Adhoc Surveys
- Labour Force Survey
- Delivery, Development and Analytical Services
As part of the Directorate Senior Leadership Team, you will help ensure strategic alignment across Social Surveys, shape collective priorities, manage strategic trade-offs and support decisions on the prioritisation of resources. You will play an important role in senior stakeholder management, help set the culture of the Directorate through what you say, do and tolerate, and work with fellow Deputy Directors to resolve issues escalated for discussion and decision.
This is a badged Government Social Research role requiring strong technical leadership. You will provide expert leadership and judgement across survey design, delivery and quality for a major survey portfolio, including decisions on user needs, design, improvement research, fieldwork, operational performance, processing, data quality and the delivery of high-quality microdata. You will also lead continuous improvement and innovation across methods, pipelines, technology and survey design. The role requires methodological judgement and decisions about design, quality and methods, as well as strong delivery leadership. Government Social Research expertise is essential to protecting survey quality and the critical ONS outputs that depend on it.
Role Responsibilities:
Leadership
- A visible and inspiring leader, you will draw on your expertise and work with people to set the direction and priorities for the Division during this time of change.
- You will lead the broader strategic leadership of the Division, working collaboratively with colleagues in the Directorate’s Senior Leadership team so that it acts as one.
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Management
- You will manage a division of ~140 colleagues with direct line management of four Grade 6s.
- As part of the Division’s focus on culture, you will take a Divisional lead to ensure that SSRP is an inclusive community that is a great place to work.
Technical
- You will provide authoritative technical leadership across a major survey portfolio, with responsibility for providing insights, direction and decisions on survey design, delivery and quality. This includes providing expert challenge and direction on user needs, improvement research, fieldwork, operational performance, processing, methodological improvements, data quality and the delivery of high-quality microdata.
- You will lead continuous improvement and innovation across methods, pipelines, technology and survey design, and use your Government Social Research expertise to coach, challenge and develop others while protecting the quality of critical ONS outputs.
Operational
- You will be accountable for the high-quality and timely delivery of milestones aligned to your objectives, as well as various significant continuous improvement and change activities which impact SSRP deliverables and people.
Influencing
- You will influence key stakeholders with competing demands and have the ability to build mutually beneficial ways of working across organisational boundaries.
Financial Management
- Accountable for the financial management of the Divisional budget which includes forecasting, routine review of spend vs budget and actions as required.
Further information on the role can be found in the attached candidate pack.
Person specification
Essential Criteria
- An inclusive leader, with strong people management skills and a proven track record of developing capability and building large, diverse, high performing teams.
- An extensive track record of delivery and continuous improvement across the full end-to-end scope of social surveys, from user engagement and requirement capture through to research, survey development, operational collection and processing.
- Strong Government Social Research expertise, with the professional credibility and judgement to set strategic direction, provide expert challenge and assure methods and quality across complex social surveys.
- Excellent communication skills, with an ability to engage effectively with staff at all levels and communicate credibly with analytical and non-analytical audiences.
- Experience of building constructive and collaborative relationships across organisational boundaries and managing complex stakeholder/user relationships.
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- Technical skills will be tested via a presentation at interview stage. This will be given to candidates one week in advance of their interview.
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