Principal Analyst

Sport England want everyone in England regardless of age, background or level of ability to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity. Some will be young, fit and talented, but most will not. We need a sport sector that welcomes everyone – meets their needs, treats them as individuals and values them as customers.  

That’s a big challenge we’ve set ourselves and to do this, we know we need exceptional research and insight. We’re already having some success – we won the 2016 AURA Insight Impact award for the work we did shaping our ‘This Girl Can’ campaign.  

But resting on our laurels won’t help us achieve our vision. We’re a growing Insight team who want to continue to develop and challenge ourselves and improve what we do. We want to keep having an impact on colleagues at Sport England and across the sector – ensuring they have great insight at their fingertips and changing the way they think and act. 

Operating at the heart of the organisation, the Data, Research and Evaluation team’s work is varied and team members will get involved in a range of different projects. Recent and current examples of the type of projects the successful candidate might work on, include:

• Management of Sport England’s Active Lives Survey adult (16 years and over) and children and young people (5-15 year olds) surveys. The new Active Lives surveys are at the forefront of government statistics and will play a central role in measuring the impact of the new strategy for sport. The surveys measures the number of people taking part in sport and physical activity across the nation and in local communities and results inform key investment decisions across community sport in England.
• As part of a wider programme of secondary analysis addressing fundamental strategic, policy and investment challenges, the team undertakes / manages analysis of a wide range of data including (but not limited to); sport and physical activity data, government population and economic statistics. Current / Recent analysis projects include; the development of Sport England 2020 strategy targets, small area estimates of engagement in sport and physical activity.
• Research into the local economic value of sport in England. Presented as an easy to use model, the findings of this work help us and local authority colleagues articulate the value of sports and make the argument for continued support and investment.

The Insight team comprises of three areas: 

• Extensive evaluation, research and analysis capability combined with data analytics to generate insight and elicit learning from Sport England’s investments 
• Customer insight expertise to ensure insights are actionable, advising and supporting internal and external stakeholders to apply insight to the decisions they make in designing policies or investments for different customer groups 
• A market insight function which provides portfolio level insight to support our Executive Team and Board with strategic thinking and decision making  

Sport England actively promotes diversity in employment and sport and welcomes applications from all parts of the community.