Office for National Statistics
Strategy Manager
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Job Summary
Are you ready to be part of something that shapes the future of our nation? Do you thrive on variety, enjoy working with teams, and want to make a difference? If so, this could be the opportunity you've been looking for.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK's largest producer of official statistics covering economic, social and demographic topics. Our statistics directly influence how services are planned and communities are supported across the country.
Be at the heart of one of the UK's most significant data transformation programmes.
Census 2031 represents our most ambitious data collection programme yet: a once-in a-decade opportunity to capture a complete picture of everyone living in England and Wales. Building on the digital success of Census 2021, we're pioneering new ways to reach every household and community, ensuring no one is left uncounted. The insights generated will inform policy decisions, guide funding, and support the planning of services and communities across the country for years to come.
Your work will support delivery of this transformational project that will shape how we understand and support our nation's future. You’ll be part of a team that ensures everyone is counted, and every voice is heard. We're building a culture that values collaboration, fresh thinking, and respect for diverse expertise. Whether you're a seasoned professional or bringing new perspectives, you'll be part of a team that welcomes bold ideas, works transparently, and thrives on solving complex challenges together.
This role sits within the Census Service Delivery & Operations division, which delivers inclusive and high-quality Census data collection across digital, remote and paper channels. As part of this division, you’ll work at the heart of our Communal Establishment (CE) Collection team.
CEs are complex for data collection because they differ fundamentally from private households in structure, population characteristics, and operational accessibility. These establishments, such as care homes, prisons, student halls, and hostels, often house vulnerable or transient populations that are hard to reach and underrepresented in administrative data. Enumeration is complicated by varied definitions of “usual resident,” inconsistent address data, and gaps in administrative coverage for certain CE types. Operational challenges include restricted access in secure environments, reliance on proxy responses, and the need for tailored strategies across diverse CE types.
Job Description
As the Strategy Manager for CE Collection for the census programme, you will play a key role in shaping and delivering the end-to-end CE census collection journey, helping to ensure the Census can successfully collect high-quality data from some of the most complex operational environments in England and Wales.
As the subject matter expert for CE collection, you’ll help deliver approaches that meet the unique needs of communal establishments, ensuring solutions are user centered, operationally effective, inclusive and accessible. Working closely with service design, operational, digital and delivery teams you will help develop requirements, support testing activity, and assure the readiness of people, processes and technology for CE operations.
If you thrive in a collaborative environment, enjoy solving complex challenges, and want to make a meaningful contribution to communities across England and Wales, we’d love to hear from you.
Key Responsibilities
- Build strong, effective relationships and collaborating with partners across ONS, to understand synergies, implement opportunities to strengthen links and improve outcomes.
- Engage with a wide variety of internal stakeholders to generate coherence across plans and outputs and capitalise on best practice shared across business areas.
- Work across the team to deliver new or improved initiatives for the directorate and the wider ONS to ensure we are maximising the impact, reach and engagement of our analysis.
- Represent work at cross office meetings and ensure intel is shared effectively, this will include providing written and verbal updates and briefings to colleagues across the directorate and wider, as well as supporting the team to draft key papers and documents.
- Play a key role in developing and implementing coherent stakeholder engagement. This may include supporting the delivery of forums or other stakeholder engagement initiatives.
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Person Specification
Essential Criteria
- Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate inclusive teams, providing clear direction, managing workloads effectively, and delivering high-quality outcomes in challenging operational environments.
- Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to build productive networks, foster collaborative relationships, and communicate complex information in a clear, accessible, and inclusive manner.
- Experience of using data and insight to inform decision-making, including analysing trends, interpreting complex data sets, developing meaningful management information, and driving continuous improvement through evidence-based recommendations.
- Ability to drive innovation and adapt to change, promoting a culture of continuous improvement, embracing new technologies, and supporting teams to adopt new ways of working and deliver services more effectively.
- Proven ability to make timely and effective decisions under pressure, balancing risks, providing clear rationale for decisions, and delivering outcomes at pace while maintaining operational standards and performance targets.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Changing and Improving
- Working Together
- Communicating and Influencing
Benefits
Alongside your salary of £41,985, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,163 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.
Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.
Inclusion & Accessibility
At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.
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Things you need to know
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Security Clearance
For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.
At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
- Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
- UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
- Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
- Security Services records.
Visa Sponsorship
ONS are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants are expected to hold a valid right to work in the UK when employment commences. If you are applying on a time-limited visa, this will need to be valid for at least 18 months.
Right To Work And Nationality Requirements
To work at ONS, applicants must meet the Civil Service nationality requirements, satisfy UK right to work requirements and, where applicable, meet the relevant security clearance requirements.
If you are unsure whether you meet the appropriate right to work or security clearance eligibility criteria, please refer to the guidance on Gov.uk or contact the recruitment email provided in the advert before applying. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your application being rejected and employment offers being withdrawn.
Application Process
Number of Stages: 2 stage process
Stage 1: Application
Stage 2: Interview
Stage 1 – Application
The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.
A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum wordcount allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.
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