Research and Development Officer

Organisation: Sport and Recreation Alliance
Salary: £25,927.20 to £28,000
Location: London
Contract type: Permanent (Full time)
Closing date: 31 August 2025
Job Description: As part of the Research & Development team within the Alliance, the Research and Development Officer is responsible to the Head of Research and Development and will hold the following core responsibilities:
Support in driving the delivery of projects: you will work with the team and its members to deliver projects that will contribute to the achievement of operational objectives. Specifically, this will focus on projects aimed at driving our policy and advocacy work, attaining income and/or enhancing the ability of the Alliance/ our members to achieve respective goals. Demonstrating an ability to successfully deliver high quality outputs whilst managing competing priorities and deadlines across workstreams and clients. Knowledge of project management principles and good practice is an advantage.

Research and Insight expertise: An ability to demonstrate a knowledge and application of both primary and secondary research skills is key. The ability to evidence expertise across either/both quantitative and qualitative methodologies is an advantage.

Solution design and research ideation: You will play a role in developing ideas and solutions to meet the needs of our members. This includes but is not limited to developing creative approaches to strategic challenges across our membership and the wider sport and recreation landscape. An understanding of artificial intelligence tools and technologies to open up new approaches to tackling challenges is an advantage.

Deliver written and presentation outputs for projects: You will be expected to contribute significantly to the delivery of high quality project outputs. This will include written reports and proposals, primary data analysis and visualisation, and the presentation of findings to both internal and external audiences.

Data analysis and visualisation: You will be comfortable handling raw data to produce insight. You will also be able to visualise these insights and present findings in a clear and engaging way. Expertise with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Power BI, Tableau or similar software packages will be an advantage.

This is a role which will demand a flexible approach, the capacity to recognise and proactively address organisational and member needs and the ability to support the development of projects and programmes with realistic budgets and schedules. It will also involve engagement with members, partners and internal teams to identify opportunities.

Click here to find the full job description and further details about the role: https://sportandrecreation.org.uk/about/careers/research-and-development-officer
How to apply: To apply, please send a CV with a covering letter outlining why you want the role and how you meet the role specification. Your covering letter should be 2 sides of A4 maximum. Please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment@sportandrecreation.org.uk If you would like an informal chat about the role, please contact the recruitment inbox and we will ask the recruiting manager to make contact to discuss.