Graduate Researcher

Organisation: Max Associates (Holdings) Ltd
Salary: Salary circa £25k (36 hour a week) – pro rata to agreed hours
Location: UK - home based
Contract type: (Part time)
Closing date: 18 August 2025
Job Description: Company and Job Overview

Max Associates is a small, dynamic consultancy that works in the local authority sports, physical activity and cultural sector. Our clients are predominantly local authorities and not for profits (which manage sports and leisure centres on behalf of local authorities). We work closely with other sector organisations, including Sport England, national governing bodies, and local community organisations in delivering our work.

We are looking to recruit a recent graduate to focus on the research elements of our projects.

Our key projects include:

• Sports, physical activity and wellbeing strategies
• Feasibilities and appraisals for refurbished and new facilities
• Management options appraisals
• Support for councils in procuring new operators to manage sports and leisure centres
• Service / business and pricing reviews.

The role

The role is to support our consultants and directors in primary desk-based research for projects.

The role is home based.

The desk based research will focus on:

• Reviewing and interpreting Council strategy documents relevant to our projects
• Demographic and health profile analysis of Council / catchment areas
• Using Sport England tools to assess trends in activity and sport participation rates
• Competition analysis utilising search engines to assess level of sports and physical activity opportunities within a catchment area
• Undertaking facility audits to understand the extent of sport and leisure provision within a council area
• Report writing and presentation development
• Comparable specific research as required for individual projects

Hours

Negotiable between 2-3 days a week

Person specification

Prior experience

• Experience of undertaking project work, interpreting and analysing data and drawing conclusions.
• Experience of summarising information and writing reports.
• Developing, compiling, managing and analysing surveys and primary engagement.
• Working in a team environment and able to deliver against deadlines.

Knowledge and understanding

• An understanding of central and local government and of public policy issues
• Knowledge of the issues facing the public leisure and culture sectors
• Knowledge of research and engagement methods.

Qualifications

• Educated to degree level.

Skills

Essential

• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
• Good written English
• Ability to analyse data and interpret findings
• Attention to detail
• Using own initiative to develop projects and reports
• Ability to work at home under own management to meet required deadlines
• Strong inter-personal skills supporting effective engagement, working with council officers, external partners and community groups
• Positive and engaging communication skills
• Workload management, with a high degree of organisation and administration capabilities
• The ability to deliver work/projects from start to finish
• Ability to take in and interpret information and present in a succinct manner
• Complete work to a high standard and ability to share knowledge across the organisation
• Respect other individuals; listens and takes into account different opinions, feelings and motivations; is trustworthy and acts with integrity; responds and acts constructively towards others
• A solution-focused mind-set, finding solutions and positive ideas
• Take personal responsibility for the complete delivery of projects, tasks and outcomes
• A willingness to learn and develop their professional and personal skills.

Desirable

• CIMSPA membership
• Marketing/project management experience
• Use of:
o Excel
o Canva / other infographic packages
o Microsoft Teams
• Knowledge of local authority sports and physical activity sector
How to apply: Please send your expression of interest and CVs to info@max-associates.com