Associate Data Governance Manager - External

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.

The Data Governance function within the Office for National Statistics is critical to enabling the good and appropriate use and management of data across the organisation, ensuring that the data that the ONS relies on to produce official statistics, research, and other core purposes is reliable and trusted so that outputs are equally reliable and trusted. Data Governance professionals ensure that data is acquired correctly and well managed across the ONS so that it is findable, understandable, useable, and treated as a valuable asset.

We are seeking three motivated Associate Data Governance Managers to join our Data Growth and Operations Directorate. These roles span a range of business areas across the Office for National Statistics, reflecting the critical importance of data governance in how data is collected, managed and used. You’ll be at the heart of the data life cycle, helping to ensure our data delivers value safely and effectively.This campaign is for external candidates who wish to be based at either our Newport or Titchfield site. Therefore this campaign has been linked with the internal advert 459962. If you are an internal candidate to ONS please apply via the other campaign. The selection and interview process will be combined, so you do not need to apply for both campaigns.

Job description

These Associate Data Governance Manager roles can cover multiple areas within the Office for National Statistics which reflects the critical role Data Governance plays and the lifecycle of data moving through the office.

You may work as part of the Data Governance Office Team to support the Chief Data Officer (CDO) and Deputy CDO to ensure good governance of all data within the ONS. This team engages across ONS with subject matter experts in a range of data management areas, tapping into their expertise to develop strategy and identify, collate and catalogue, policies, standards, guidance, and metadata. This team works with staff holding data governance roles & responsibilities to ensure that the strategy, policies, and standards are known, adopted, embedded and adhered to and supports the tracking and reporting of key performance indicators to demonstrate the effectiveness of this work.

You may work as part of the Data Acquisition team to support ONS, Government and Academic analysts answer the questions of the day by working with data partners to negotiate and enable access to sustainable data sources, putting in place, maintaining and managing data governance frameworks for safe data sharing and usage, and implementing and supporting the data strategy. This involves understanding and consolidating analysts’ requirements for producing and developing their statistics, matching these with the available data, negotiating access to these data for statistical and research purposes, and making tactical recommendations on the creation of data assets. Successful delivery will result in robust processes and documentation, working closely across Data Acquisition, the directorate and the rest of the organisation.

All Data Governance roles within ONS apply relevant data and ethical frameworks and standards to their work and understand data governance good practice. Specifically, providing advice to users on the technical, ethical, data protection and security, and legal aspects (e.g. GDPR) of using data, and the benefits of using it.

You will be able to grasp statistical, economic, and social concepts quickly, identifying common needs for data and communicating appropriately and clearly between technical and non-technical audiences.

You will understand data and how they can be prepared for, and used in, statistics and research and how they can benefit policy and decision making, as well as understanding the economy and society better. You will need to build and demonstrate a good understanding of data and how it is used in the production of official statistics and research.

Responsibilities

• Support the process of capturing stakeholder needs, assessing, defining and justifying those needs to arrive at a definitive set of user requirements that are reflected in the required documentation.
• Support the stakeholder engagement activity of your team.
• Support the Secretariat function of the DG Office, providing updates and reporting to the Data Governance Council, data owners and the communities of practice.
• Support the preparation of documentation for data sharing and/or governance, for example memorandums of understanding, business cases and policy documents, and play an instrumental role in standardising this documentation.
• Develop a good understanding of data sharing legislation, data governance and data management and be able to apply this to your day-to-day work.
• Develop and continuously improve your understanding of the technical aspects of data management such as quality management, metadata and data standards.
• Have a broad understanding of both data and data governance and be able to explain this to a non-technical audience.
• Identify, understand and communicate factors that influence and shape data and present in a way appropriate to the audience.
• Maximise the use of administrative and survey data for statistics through your understanding of the value of these data, including what is already available to use in ONS and what the wider landscape of data can provide.
• Develop and maintain project plans, incorporating requirements, deliverables and risks that are associated with the project.
• Proactively identify your own development needs, ensuring that you deliver your responsibilities to the highest possible standard.
• Contribute to activity that benefits the strategic aims of the division or directorate, ensuring it is the best possible place to work.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Stakeholder relationship management (Awareness) - Describe who your stakeholders are and the importance of managing relationships with them. Explain what your stakeholders find important and why.
• Data management (Working) - Follow organisational data governance, including policies on data access, sharing, dissemination and protection. Participate in or deliver data management across services or products. Use appropriate data management tools, procedures and methods with some support
• Communicating between the technical and the non-technical (Working) - Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders. Support and host discussions within a multidisciplinary team, with potentially difficult dynamics. Be an advocate for the team externally. Manage differing stakeholder perspectives
• Data Life Cycle (Working) - Understand and apply data governance over a data life cycle, ensuring best practice at each phase.
• Data Governance (Working) - Demonstrate up-to-date knowledge of data governance theory, standard methodology and the practical considerations. Develop an end-to-end data governance framework (the processes, operational policies and standards needed to support data management). Work effectively with technical teams and other stakeholders to implement a data governance framework, and make recommendations to ensure compliance.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Delivering at Pace
• Managing a Quality Service
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £34,587, Office for National Statistics contributes £10,019 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

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.

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.

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.

To work at the ONS, candidates must meet both UK right to work and security clearance requirements (where applicable).

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 word count allowed is 1250 words, 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.

When a high volume of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted. Candidates will be invited to interview based on their merit order, with those achieving the highest scores being prioritised. Applicants who score below the adjusted pass mark but still pass will be placed on hold and may be invited to interview at a later date.

Stage 2 – Interview

If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.

You will be required to provide a 5 minute presentation at interview. The presentation topic will be emailed to candidates who have passed the initial online application stage, 1 week prior to interview. This presentation will assess candidates against the Success Profiles Behaviour Communicating and influencing.

Interviews will be via Microsoft Teams.

A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.

Important Dates

• Eligibility checks from 15 - 22 May
• Sift will be conducted from 27/05/2026
• Interviews will be conducted from 16/06/2026

For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.

Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Government Digital and Data Recruitment
• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : Government-Digital-and-Data-Recruitment@ons.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact recruitment.complaints@ons.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission

Attachments

2721 Advert 1B Permanent - ONS National Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)