Programme and Project Support Officers

Job summary

Are you highly organised, proactive, and keen to support the delivery of a significant programme or project?

We’re looking for a Programme and Project Support Officers to join the Census 2031 PMO Hub team and the Methodology and Quality Directorate (MQD) to play a key role in reporting across the programme.

There are 4 roles available as part of this campaign:

The two Project Support Officer roles sit within MQD Delivery Management Branch, which plays a vital role in ensuring effective project management and planning across the directorate. Guided by the standards, processes, and best practices set by the central Finance, Planning & Portfolio (FPP) team, we lead the planning efforts—aligning MQD’s workplans with ONS objectives and priorities. We oversee the directorate’s committed work, proactively identifying and managing risks and issues, and providing comprehensive progress reports to the Senior Leadership Team. Our Programme Managers collaborate closely with the hubs to ensure the portfolio of work is meticulously planned, well-prioritised, and optimally resourced, while remaining agile in response to evolving ONS requirements. Ultimately, the team serves as a central point for tracking delivery progress, offering a structured escalation route for critical issues, and empowering leadership with valuable planning insights to support informed decision-making.

The other two Programme Support Officer roles sit within the Census Delivery and Operations Directorate. Census 2031 represents our most ambitious data collection project 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 2021, we're pioneering new ways to reach every household and community, ensuring no one is left uncounted. This vital work will provide the foundation for policy decisions, resource allocation, and community planning for the next decade.

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.

Job description

The role of the Programme and Project Support Officer covers a diverse range of activities to support the delivery of a project or programme’s objectives.

The Programme Support Officer enables the smooth running of the programme by supporting the Programme Manager/PMO Manager through the operation of programme management processes in one or more functional areas within the PMO eg Planning, Risk, Change Control, Assurance, Benefits, Reporting etc. The Programme Support Officer also supports the Programme/PMO Manager through the co-ordination of business management actions and activities on their behalf.

The Project Support Officer performs a variety of activities to help achieve the project’s objectives. This role supports the Project Manager by operating project management processes and coordinating business management tasks and activities.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist with and maintain appropriate systems to enable effective planning and scheduling.
• Assist in maintaining project or programme controls and in producing reports.
• Responsible for project or programme file management using robust version control. Organise key project or programme meetings and provide secretariat support.
• Management of staff as appropriate, including their development.
• Assist with maintaining the stakeholder log for internal and external stakeholders. Act as the focal point for the project or programme responses to external requests for information.
• Assist with and monitor of programme or project spend and contribute to the compilation of budgets. Maintains an accurate asset register for the project or programme.
• Assist with and maintain risk and issue logs, escalating as appropriate.
• Collects and shares data in line with data standards. Uses data analytics and digital tools to compile and present project or programme information that aids in monitoring progress and identifying potential issues.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Experience of working effectively in a fast-paced project, programme or business support environment.
• Ability to manage a varied and complex workload, prioritising tasks effectively and adapting to changing demands, while consistently delivering high-quality outcomes to tight deadlines.
• Proven focus on delivery, taking ownership of tasks and seeing them through to completion, ensuring outputs are delivered accurately and on time.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with experience of building and maintaining effective working relationships with a range of stakeholders, including with senior leadership.
• Understanding of risk and issue management and its importance within a project or programme environment.

Behaviours

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

• Working Together
• Delivering at Pace
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

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

• Risks and Issue management - Awareness : Project Delivery Capability Framework

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £28,138, Office for National Statistics contributes £8,151 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.

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, Experience and Technical skills.

Security

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

Application Process

Number of Stages: 3 stage process

Stage 1: Civil Service Judgement Test

Stage 2: Application

Stage 3: Interview

Stage 1 - Civil Service Judgement Test

Upon submission of Part 1 your application form you will be sent an invitation to complete Civil Service Situational Judgement online tests.

There will be full instructions on how to complete the test including an opportunity to practice before undertaking the actual test. These tests are not time limited.

If you pass the test for this vacancy, you will be invited to complete the final stage of your application, this is where you will provide information such as your work history, Skills and experience and Personal Statement.

Stage 2 – Application

The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, 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.

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 3 – Interview

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

Interviews will be held via Microsoft Teams.

Our main locations are Newport (South Wales), Titchfield and Darlington.

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

Important Dates:

The closing date for the role is 10/07/2026 at 23:55. Please note, both the Situational Judgement test and written application (work history, qualifications and personal statement) will need to be completed by this deadline.

The Sift will be conducted from Tuesday 14th July

Interviews will be conducted from Wednesday 29th July

Dates are subject to change.

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.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.

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 : RecruitmentOperations@ons.gov.uk
• Email : RecruitmentOperations@ons.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : RecruitmentOperations@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 v1-00 (2) Opens in new window (pdf, 83kB)Location Flexibilities Opens in new window (pdf, 61kB)