ONS operates a flexible hybrid working model across the UK, with colleagues linked to one of our contractual locations in Newport, Titchfield (Fareham) and working between office and remote throughout the week.
As part of the hybrid working arrangement there is a 40% minimum office attendance requirement. Attendance is typically at your contractual office, with occasional travel to alternative locations. The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.
Job Summary
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 (SSD) is the largest Directorate in ONS, comprising 2000 colleagues, including the field forces, split across four divisions: Social Surveys Collection (SSC), Social Surveys Research and Production (SSRP), Social Surveys Transformation (SST),Social Surveys Central Division (SSCD).
This post sits with Social Surveys Collection (SSC) which delivers many of Great Britain’s largest social surveys. Our purpose is to provide high quality data to underpin core National Statistics and the wider statistical system. While much of ONS relies on them for outputs and statistical bulletins, the statistics we generate also support research, policy development and decision-making across the public and private sectors. The Social Survey Collection Division is one of the largest divisions within ONS, with approximately 1,400 colleagues.
Underpinning all this work is our mission statement, which reads: "We are a flexible and diverse community of data collection experts, and our mission is to collect and deliver high quality, trusted social survey data from the public, utilising robust, sustainable and innovative processes to paint a picture of rapidly changing life in the United Kingdom."
The Operational Delivery Profession (ODP) is the largest profession in the Civil Service. ODP’s 200,000+ members work in a wide range of operational delivery roles across government, providing essential services that support and protect UK citizens at home and overseas. They help make ONS a great place to work.
As a member, ODP supports you by providing learning and development opportunities, career pathways, tools, and resources to help develop your skills and progress your career. This is an exciting opportunity to join a modern, innovative, and inclusive Civil Service profession that sits at the heart of public service delivery.
Job Description
The Survey Support Administrator sits within the Social Surveys Directorate. The successful candidate will work within a small multi grade team who manage the Fieldwork Management Tool, sampling and allocations of ONS social surveys. The teamwork in a fast-paced changing environment with conflicting priorities and often need to shift resource to priority work.
The Allocations Support Administrators work collaboratively to maintain the onboarding and maintenance of delivery support to Field Interviewers and survey management teams. There will be a requirement to assist in providing cover from 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 4pm on a Friday, in conjunction with the existing team.
Responsibilities:
- Monitoring, prioritising and action requests and queries from a central mailbox and ticketing support system accurately within defined timescales, escalating complex queries.
- Proactively working on inbound queries and having a clear understanding of each topic to provide front line support to our Field community, including via email and telephone support.
- Actively prioritise and deal with Service Desks requests as a front-line resolver for Interviewer queries and requests across our surveys.
- Communicating and building strong relationships with the Field community and Senior Leadership Team.
- Running reports across multiple systems for use by the stakeholders.
- Accurately completing spreadsheets and other documentation to a high standard.
- Actively contribute to continuous improvement within the team.
- Accessing a third-party ordering system to reissue vouchers to respondents.
- Coding out and re-coding cases using Casebook.
The Survey Support Administrator sits within the Social Surveys Directorate. The successful candidate will work within a small multi grade team who manage the Fieldwork Management Tool, sampling and allocations of ONS social surveys. The teamwork in a fast-paced changing environment with conflicting priorities and often need to shift resource to priority work.
The Allocations Support Administrators work collaboratively to maintain the onboarding and maintenance of delivery support to Field Interviewers and survey management teams. There will be a requirement to assist in providing cover from 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 4pm on a Friday, in conjunction with the existing team.
Responsibilities:
- Monitoring, prioritising and action requests and queries from a central mailbox and ticketing support system accurately within defined timescales, escalating complex queries.
- Proactively working on inbound queries and having a clear understanding of each topic to provide front line support to our Field community, including via email and telephone support.
- Actively prioritise and deal with Service Desks requests as a front-line resolver for Interviewer queries and requests across our surveys.
- Communicating and building strong relationships with the Field community and Senior Leadership Team.
- Running reports across multiple systems for use by the stakeholders.
- Accurately completing spreadsheets and other documentation to a high standard.
- Actively contribute to continuous improvement within the team.
- Accessing a third-party ordering system to reissue vouchers to respondents.
- Coding out and re-coding cases using Casebook.
Person specification
Essential Criteria:
- Experience of prioritising work from a range of sources leading to successful outcomes.
- Ability to learn and use multiple systems.
- Flexibility and willingness to take on new work at short notice.
- Excellent communication skills and evidence of building effective relationships
- Experience of using Microsoft Office 365 including Word, Outlook and Excel to an intermediate/advance level.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Communicating and Influencing
- Delivering at Pace
- Working Together
Alongside your salary of £24,137, Office for National Statistics contributes £6,992 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our 5400 valued colleagues across the business.
Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that the benefits pack attached
(bottom of page) will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.
Inclusion & Accessibility
At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
All applicants will have access to AI resources, it is therefore important to remember these tools, although helpful in streamlining the writing process, cannot fully understand the organisational context, or requirements for the role you are applying for.
To maintain authenticity and credibility of the application process, should you choose to use generative AI tools, you need to ensure the information you provide in your supporting evidence accurately reflects your skills, knowledge, and experience.
ONS does not advocate relying solely on generative AI to write your application. Doing so may negatively impact your chances of success during the selection process.
If you are invited to interview, please be aware the use of AI tools is prohibited and any suspected use may result in the termination of your interview and subsequent withdrawal from the campaign.
Please note that all campaigns may be subject to withdrawal at any stage if the internal resource position changes.
Application Process
Number of Stages: 2 stage process
Stage 1: Application
Stage 2: Interview
Stage 1 – Application
The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, skills, experience, Civil Service Verbal Test, CV, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.
You are required to complete a personal statement at application state, which has a maximum wordcount of 1250 words, which should not be exceeded. Where it is a requirement to make a personal statement, you should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (Situation, Task, Action, Result).
Civil Service Online Tests
Upon submission of Part 1 your application form you will be sent an invitation to complete a Civil Service Verbal online test.
There will be full instructions on how to complete the test including an opportunity to practice before undertaking the actual test. The test is not time limited.
If you pass the test, you will be invited to complete the final stage of your application, this is where you will provide information such as your work history. Skills and experience and Personal Statement / Statement of Suitability.
If you fail a test your application will not proceed to the next stage.
Please note that Success Profiles Behaviour examples are not required at this stage of the application process.
In instances where a high number of applications are received, the sift pass mark may be adjusted, and candidates will be invited to interview based on merit order, i.e., those with the highest scores.
Stage 2 – Interview
If invited to interview, you will be assessed using techniques aligned with the Civil Service Success Profiles framework, covering all behaviours listed in the job advert and any required technical skills.
Interviews will be carried out via Microsoft Teams.
Our main locations are Newport (South Wales), Titchfield and Darlington.
A reserve list may be held for a period up to 12 months from which further appointments may be made.
The Sift will be conducted from Wednesday 23rd April 2025
Interviews will be conducted from Monday 12th May 2025
For the full terms and conditions of the post, please see attachment.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job Contact :
Recruitment team
Further information
If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, in the first instance, you should contact
[email protected]. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission