Funding Analyst

Salary: £
37,841 per annum | Fixed-term contract (6 months) |
Full-time or part-time (min 0.8 FTE) | Closing date: 16 August 2026

At Research England, we're committed to strengthening England's higher education sector by investing in research and knowledge exchange that tackles global challenges, drives innovation, and delivers benefits for society and the economy. Behind every funding decision is a team of dedicated professionals ensuring public investment is allocated fairly, transparently, and effectively.

As a Funding Analyst, you'll play an important part in this mission. Your work will help ensure that funding reaches the institutions where it can have the greatest impact, supporting world‑class research, fostering collaboration, and enabling discoveries that shape the future.

As a Funding Analyst at Research England, you will be in a key position to design, deliver and operate analytical tools and processes that directly support the allocation of £2 billion of strategic institutional research funding and knowledge exchange funding to higher education providers in England. Working as a member of a fast‑paced team committed to innovation and continuous improvement, you will be responsible for undertaking work from design and development, through the crucial quality assurance processes, to delivery.

These work areas include the effective and timely delivery of funding operations, providing analysis and dashboarding to support senior and executive leaders in their decision making, and supporting data operations to ensure that underlying datasets are up to date and reliable.

A sound understanding of an analytical product development cycle is crucial for this role, including significant experience of coding in R, analysing data and presenting findings. Equally important is experience of quality assurance processes, and an awareness of how these minimise errors in analytical outputs.

Alongside these specific tasks, you will also support other analytical work within the team by processing and analysing large and complex databases to address research policy questions and improve analytics operations.

To support the algorithm‑driven allocation of research funds to higher education providers by:

Developing a sound knowledge of the Higher Education sector data used by the analyst team to underpin funding allocations.

Developing a sound knowledge of the algorithm‑driven (formula‑based) research funding methods used by Research England and collaborating with colleagues to develop, maintain and implement funding models.

Supporting the team by challenging assumptions, considering data and methodological limitations, and suggesting solutions.

Engaging with quality assurance and publication processes for disseminating outcomes.

To provide broader sector analysis by:

Supporting the development of new approaches and analytical models that underpin sector benchmarking activities.

Investigating available datasets and determining possible metrics for use in sector analysis.

Collaborating with colleagues on ways to gain sector insight from datasets, and how to visualise this data to aid in supplying insight to internal and external stakeholders.

To assist with quality assurance (QA) checks when required:

Ensuring that the team QA process is always followed.

Making sure that QA approvals are escalated as necessary.

Other responsibilities include:

Supporting the development and maintenance of analytical tools to facilitate the teams’ activities.

Supporting wider areas of the funding operations and funding systems teams’ activities as they arise.

The following criteria will be assessed at shortlisting (S), at interview (I) or both (S/I).

Qualifications: An RQF level 3 qualification (equivalent to A‑level) in a numerate subject, or relevant experience. (S)

Analytical expertise: Knowledge of the practical application of analytical methodologies, with ability to develop new approaches for analysing and utilising data, rather than relying on rote application of standard methods. (S/I)

Critical evaluation and problem solving: Ability to critically review…