SU Vacancy Banner

The Strategy Unit is an independent research and analysis consultancy, providing the NHS and its partners with high quality evidence – from within the NHS.

Our services are in high demand, as the NHS and its partners face significant challenges. We work with healthcare providers, commissioners, universities, charities, and government organisations. Supporting them to solve complex problems by providing evidence-informed analysis and advice. 

We are recruiting to new roles to expand our amazing teams!  

 

Strategy Unit Evaluation Team

 

Research Assistant (£25,147  - £27,596)

Senior Consultant (£43,742 - £57,349)

 

  • Senior Consultant

    Evaluation Team 

     £43,742 - £57,349 ( Band 7/8a)

    The Strategy Unit is expanding our Evaluation team to support existing clients and continue to build our offer. We are looking for a Senior Consultant who will engage with clients to scope requirements, design and deliver quality evaluations and work collaboratively to continuously improve our processes and outputs.   

    Main duties of the job

    As part of the Evaluation team, you will be working with a wide range of clients to deliver evaluations from small, local interventions to large, national complex and high-profile programmes.  

    We use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and work with stakeholders at all levels, from the most senior strategic positions to patients and service users. You will work across and often manage multiple project teams, sometimes in partnerships with other organisations, across a diverse range of topics. Current evaluations include: a large national cancer programme; digital innovations to address health inequalities; virtual wards; new models of managing demand for emergency care; and 2 hour urgent community response. 

    You will have experience in designing, managing and delivering qualitative and mixed method evaluation projects, with experience of working with clients in health and care or broader social policy. We have quantitative, impact evaluation specialists in our team. In this role, you will understand how to manage this work within mixed method evaluation with or without this specialist knowledge. 

    You will be a valued member of the Strategy Unit team, supporting the development of our services, systems, strategy, and reputation for excellence.  

    You will be provided with all the opportunities you require to develop your skills and build your career, both through formal training and hands-on experience.  

     

    Working for our organisation

    Our Unit is increasingly diverse and geographically widespread. We value and seek to foster this, recognising that different people bring different perspectives, lived experience, ideas, and culture to the Strategy Unit. We also know that everyone has a life and commitments outside work, and many of us benefit from our use of flexible working arrangements.  

    The Evaluation team has a voluntary compressed hours nine day fortnight, with a common non-working day.  

    We are based in central Birmingham but work on projects from across the UK and have a hybrid model of working for team members. This means that there is no minimum requirement for working from the office - it is a resource for collaboration and mutual support and not a duty. But coming together to collaborate still matters to us very much, particularly for project teams whose work is generally more participative and with a higher degree of client engagement. Some projects also require us to travel to locations across the country occasionally.  

    Apply here

  •  

    Research Assistant

    Evaluation

    £25,147  - £27,596 (Band 4)

    The Strategy Unit is expanding our Evaluation team to support existing clients and continue to build our offer. We are seeking Research Assistants who can take responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of project outputs, working within our project teams.  

    Main duties of the job

    As part of the Evaluation team you will be working on a wide range of evaluations from small, local interventions to large, national complex and high-profile programmes. We use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods and work with stakeholders at all levels from the most senior strategic positions to patients and service users. You will work across multiple project teams, sometimes in partnerships with other organisations, across a diverse range of topics. Current evaluations include: a large national cancer programme; digital innovations to address health inequalities; virtual wards; new models of managing demand for emergency care; and 2 hour urgent community response. 

     

    Working for our organisation

    Our Unit is increasingly diverse and geographically widespread. We value and seek to foster this, recognising that different people bring different perspectives, lived experience, ideas, and culture to the Strategy Unit. We also know that everyone has a life and commitments outside work, and many of us benefit from our use of flexible working arrangements.  

    The Evaluation team has a voluntary compressed hours nine-day fortnight, with a common non-working day.  

    We are based in central Birmingham but work on projects from across the UK and have a hybrid model of working for team members. This means that there is no minimum requirement for working from the office - it is a resource for collaboration and mutual support and not a duty. But coming together to collaborate still matters to us very much, particularly for project teams whose work is generally more participative and with a higher degree of client engagement. Some projects also require us to travel to locations across the country occasionally.  

     

    Detailed job description and main responsibilities

    Key responsibilities 

    • Deliver specific tasks within complex project assignments, working under the direction of the project manager/director. Demonstrating high quality interpersonal skills, alongside an analytical mindset. 
    • Manage multiple tasks across a range of projects, be calm under pressure and juggle competing priorities and tight deadlines. 
    • Take responsibility for ensuring your work is completed as directed by the project manager/director, ensuring that assignments are delivered within the available resources, on time and of the required quality.  
    • Understand risks and interdependencies and the impact of their work on other aspects of project delivery. 
    • Take the initiative in developing your understanding of the broader health and care policy / institutional environment.  
    • You will be required to build and maintain good working relationships with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. 

    Apply here 

Our values 

We operate as an independent consultancy but are part of the NHS, hosted by Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (CSU), and driven by NHS values.  Our desire is to: 

  • Our team are mostly based in the Midlands, although the majority are currently working from home. We currently have a office based in Central Birmingham which is only a 2-min walk from New Street train station. 

    We are committed to providing a work environment to suit you, this means we will provide all equipment necessary for your role. We understand that everyones circumstances are different and we aim to be as accommodating as possible. There will be no minimum requirement to come into the office, but we do expect to have regular team days where everyone will get together. 

  • We strongly value diversity within our workforce, and recognise that different people bring different perspectives, lived experience, ideas, and culture to the team. This difference brings with it great strengths, including diversity of thought and innovation.  

    We welcome applications from everyone irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, faith and religion, disability, and age. Ethnic minority groups, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, disabled people and religious and faith groups are currently under-represented across the organisation, we would encourage applications from members of these groups.  

    We also know that everyone has a life outside work, so we're open to discussing flexible working options, provided we can balance your needs with those of our clients.  

    Please submit your application through the NHS Jobs portal. We recognise that this is not a straightforward process but unfortunately, we can’t accept CV’s. We'll do everything we can to support you during your application. If you need us to make any adjustments to our recruitment process to accommodate your needs, feel free to contact strategy.unit@nhs.net who will be happy to support you. 

  • If you have any queries relating to specific areas of our work or what it’s like to work at the Strategy Unit, please get in touch: strategy.unit@nhs.net