Deputy Director of Strategy, Research and Innovation

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.

Social Surveys Directorate plays a central role in delivering the ONS mission through the design, collection and production of household survey data that underpin some of the UK’s most important economic and social statistics. Our work supports decision-making across government, business, academia and the wider public, and provides the evidence base for policy, operational delivery and public understanding on issues that matter nationally and locally.

The 2026 ONS Business plan prioritises improving the quality and trustworthiness of published statistics, providing timely and relevant data for decision-makers, and building a more efficient, resilient and adaptable organisation. For social surveys, that means stabilising and recovering the quality of our core surveys, completing the transformation of the Labour Force Survey, strengthening the long-term sustainability of our survey system and investing in the development of our people.

With around 2,000 colleagues, Social Surveys Directorate is one of the largest business areas in ONS. It brings together the leadership, operational capability and in-depth social research expertise needed to run and improve the UK’s largest and most complex social surveys.

This role is the Deputy Director for the Social Surveys Strategic Research and Innovation Division. The Division works in partnership with the following five Divisions:

• Social Surveys Field Collection
• Social Surveys Telephone and Ports Collection
• Social Surveys Research and Production
• Social Surveys Transformation
• Social Surveys Central Division

The post holder will play an important leadership role in ensuring these interdependent parts of the system work together effectively to deliver high-quality survey data and support the wider strategic priorities of ONS. The role will report directly to Alex Lambert, Director for Social Surveys, who in turn reports to James Benford, Director General for Surveys and Economic Statistics.

The purpose of the role is to lead the Social Surveys Strategy, Research and Innovation Division. Operating outside the day-to-day data collection operation, the Division provides the capacity for longer-term strategic development, shaping the future direction of social surveys and delivering a programme of research and innovation to support their recovery and sustainability. The Division’s work is strategically important, as the economic indicators and official statistics produced from these surveys inform decisions across government and wider society.

Only a year old, the Division has already made significant progress in establishing its identity, ways of working and culture, while building capability and momentum. In its first twelve months it established two credible research portfolios to support social survey recovery and the use of alternative data, and developed and launched a new external survey performance dashboard to increase transparency and build trust with users.

It has also launched a new social survey sector forum to align activity across the sector around shared challenges and, jointly with communications and media colleagues, delivered products and a developing media campaign to promote participation in our surveys.

Over the coming year, the Division’s priorities, in line with ONS, SES and Directorate business plans, are to:

• Develop a new Social Survey Strategy to provide a road-map for recovery and a clear direction for the future of social surveys in ONS.
• Advance research on artificial intelligence and alternative data, identifying opportunities across the end-to-end survey system to improve quality and efficiency.
• Deliver a portfolio of survey research and innovation to support ONS in improving public engagement with surveys, including work on incentives, media and…