Researcher

Metro Dynamics is an employee-owned consultancy that provides strategic advice to those who lead, do business or invest in local economies. Our clients span a diverse range of organisations across the UK, including local government, combined authorities, private sector investors, universities and developers across the UK.

We are team of people from different backgrounds that share a passion for making places and our economy work better, bringing together different skills and experiences to this challenge. We are a values-led organisation and strive to demonstrate the kind of working practices we want to see in the economy. Read more about our values here.

We are seeking talented and inquisitive researchers, who share our passion and interest for supporting places to grow and thrive and can apply strong analytical skills to solve problems within economic and policy contexts. This position will be based in either our Manchester or London office. We offer hybrid working with the expectation of at least two days a week in the office to support on the job learning and professional development opportunities.

Researchers at Metro Dynamics can expect to be involved in:

• Working as part of project teams to support the development of economic strategies and develop evidence-based recommendations for places, institutions and business;
• Delivering quantitative and qualitative research, including data analysis and statistics, desk-based research, literature reviews and supporting engagement activities (i.e. interviews and focus groups);
• Providing advice to clients through the development of reports, presentations, bespoke research, evidence bases and other written content
• Supporting effective project and client management, contributing to client-facing outputs;
• Supporting the wider activities and operation of the business, such as policy briefings, external event summaries as well as company and business development activity.

Candidates are expected to:

• Have a relevant degree to the role;
• Have experience analysing and visualising data to answer questions and solve problems;
• Comfortable presenting and explaining analysis to technical and non-technical audiences;
• Be a motivated, proactive individual with a passion for solving important problems relevant to our business and clients;
• Be curious about our clients, place and the economy;
• Be organised, adaptable to changing priorities and comfortable working at pace and in ambiguous situations whilst maintaining strong attention to detail;
• be committed to personal development and open to learning new things, often on the job;
• be able to work collaboratively in a team;
• have excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Desirable skills

• Experience using relevant UK socioeconomic datasets;
• Experience of using GIS software (ArcGIS / QGIS);
• Experience of relevant statistics packages and understanding of data analytics tools / languages (e.g. R);
• Experience with PowerBi tools and creating dashboards for visualisation.

What we offer:

We offer an excellent benefits package comprising:

• Annual profit share (dependent on company performance);
• 8% employer contribution to company pension scheme;
• 29 days annual leave which includes company closedown between Christmas and New Year and one day birthday leave;
• Wellbeing benefits including life insurance, income protection insurance, cycle to work scheme;
• Access to our employee assistance programme which provides various support services including 24/7 GP appointments;
• Access to training and personal development in line with career progression goals and business requirements.