Evaluation Specialist

Job summary

Context:

The Economic Appraisal and Evaluation (EA&E) team is part of the Strategy directorate in Innovate UK. Innovation is a key component of economic growth, and it is the team’s role to ensure that appropriate evidence is collected and interpreted through economic appraisal and evaluation to inform Innovate UK’s decision making. This evidence will inform the development of effective programmes, build understanding of impact, and assess the overall performance and balance of Innovate UK’s portfolio

We particularly welcome female applicants as women are under-represented within Innovate UK in this type of role.

Job Purpose:

Reporting to the Lead Specialist for Innovate UK Core Evaluation, this role supports the design, coordination, and delivery of Innovate UK’s core and managed evaluation portfolio.

The postholder will work closely with programme teams across Innovate UK to embed robust, proportionate evaluation approaches that align with Green Book and Magenta Book standards. This includes providing expert advice, sharing best practice, and supporting teams to commission and manage complex evaluation activities that demonstrate the impact and benefits of Innovate UK’s investments in the innovation landscape.

Combining hands-on project delivery with strategic input, the role has a strong focus on organisational learning and improving the use of evaluation evidence to inform strategy, policy, and programme delivery. The postholder will contribute to the ongoing development of Innovate UK’s evaluation framework in a dynamic and evolving context.

They will collaborate with colleagues across Innovate UK, UKRI, and DSIT to embed evaluation activities and ensure key insights are used to shape future direction.

The successful applicant will be proactive, professional, and ambitious in driving the creation, development, and delivery of evaluation projects through a range of communication channels. They will be confident working across busy, multi-organisation teams, managing a variety of tasks, and building strong relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.

Job description

Key Responsibilities and Accountabilities:

• Lead the delivery and support of specific evaluations, including managing externally commissioned work and ensuring evaluations meet quality, relevance, and value-for-money standards.
• Support Strategy and Programme teams to design and implement monitoring and evaluation plans, ensuring clarity of purpose, outcomes, and evidence needs.
• Support the commissioning of external evaluation contractors, including raising Purchase Orders, monitoring procurement activities.
• Manage elements of Innovate UK’s evaluation portfolio, including workplans, documentation, and reporting, ensuring effective oversight and progress tracking.
• Synthesise insights from across Innovate UK’s evaluation portfolio, identifying key messages and translating them into evidence-informed narratives for internal and external stakeholders.
• Work closely with the Lead Specialists within the team and colleagues across the Economic Appraisal & Evaluation team to refine and communicate Innovate UK’s evaluation tools and practices.
• Support and deliver evaluation training and events to build Innovate UK’s internal capability.
• Maintain awareness of current and emerging good practice in innovation evaluation, supporting Innovate UK to remain at the forefront of evaluation thinking.
• Communicate technical evidence clearly and accessibly, adapting content for different audiences, and highlighting key findings, implications, and limitations.
• Manage Innovate UK’s Evaluation Evidence Library, ensuring evaluation findings are accessible and used to inform ongoing work.
• Operate autonomously, delivering high-quality work across multiple priorities and contributing to cross-organisational evaluation capability and maturity.
• Build and maintain effective working relationships with contractors, programme teams, analytical colleagues, and external stakeholders, including UKRI and government departments.
• Support the development and review of theories of change (TOCs), or Logic Models, helping to ensure logic models are robust, and evidence pathways are credible.
• Improve accessibility to the team’s by organising and maintaining the team’s internal vast catalogue of historical evaluations and developing the team’s internal presence on SharePoint / TeamSite.

Person specification

Experience & Qualifications:

Essential –

• This is a technical analytical role. Applicants must either have a degree-level (or higher) qualification in a course which contained at least 50% of one of the following(s): Mathematics, Economics, Statistics and data analysis, Social Research using qualitative and/or quantitative methods or have considerable experience applying these skills in a relevant work environment. (S)
• Strong knowledge and broad experience in applying a range of quantitative and/or qualitative analysis methods and evaluation approaches, including interpreting and drawing insights from results (S&I)
• Experience of managing multiple complex projects simultaneously, including planning, monitoring, reporting, and overseeing external contractors to ensure effective delivery. (S&I)
• Evidence of strong written and oral communications skills, including explaining technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders (S&I)
• Experience of working with and influencing both internal and external stakeholders incl. suppliers/contractors (S&I)
• Experience of facilitating stakeholder workshops (S&I)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £46,743, Innovate UK contributes £13,541 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

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

1st Interview incl presentation.

Interviews will either take place remotely via Teams or in person face to face.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Medical

Successful candidates will be expected to have a medical.

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

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.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.

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

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Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Recruitment@ukri.org
• Email : Recruitment@ukri.org

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitment@ukri.org