Your role
These Lead Analyst (Children and Young People) posts have a focus on placement sufficiency for children in care. The postholders will be in the team leading and driving the technical data and analytical function of England’s first ever Regional Care Cooperative, which formally launched in April 2025. These posts will contribute to a key function of the Regional Care Cooperative: to deliver regional data analysis and demand modelling to enable agile, needs-led commissioning and market management, as well as ensuring ongoing understanding of delivery and outcomes.

Post 1 will have an anticipated specialism in markets and economic analysis, appraisal and demand modelling.

Post 2 will have an anticipated specialism in delivery and outcomes monitoring, and the development of data dashboards and tools.

This is an exciting time to join the expanding team. GM is at the forefront of data development and innovation in children’s social care nationally, being the first city region to have established a common data model of linked administrative data to enable a rounded view of children in care and sufficiency. We are also piloting new data and analytical approaches to developing our understanding of child need, anticipated demand and prevention pathways. We are doing this in collaboration with partners including local authorities, health and youth justice. This follows the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority and Independent Review of Children’s Social Care for local authorities to increase their ability to engage effectively with the market through effective forecasting. This will help us ensure that the right care is available in the right place, at the right time for the more than 6,200 Greater Manchester children and young people in care.

Key information
These are new fixed 18-month term opportunities reflecting current funding terms. Secondments are welcomed from all organisations.

These roles allow both flexible and hybrid working. It is anticipated that the post holder will spend on average at least one day per week in the GMCA’s Manchester city centre office.

For more information about the roles or recruitment process, please contact Hannah Murray (Principal Researcher Children’s Social Care) at hannah.murray@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk.

Key relationships
These roles will benefit from being part of a community of analysts and with opportunities for technical development as well as being well positioned to see the impact of data work and delivery, with the Regional Care Cooperative interfacing with both national policy and local delivery.

These roles will work as part of the children’s social care research sub team, which is in the GMCA Strategy and Research directorate, with specialisms spanning appraisal and evaluation, and quantitative, qualitative and operational research. The postholders will be embedded within, and deliver directly to, the Greater Manchester Regional Care Cooperative, which is based within the Public Service Reform directorate at the GMCA. These teams operate from the same central Manchester office.

The postholders will be expected to interact with senior commissioning managers and project managers, and work in close collaboration with other technical specialists both within and outside of the GMCA (for example, colleagues within GMCA Research and Digital teams along with external consultancies and technical leads in local authorities, NHS and youth justice).

About you
These opportunities fit within our organisational structure as Lead Analyst positions (a step up from our early career positions) so the right person for the job will have previous experience of undertaking research and analysis from either academic study or wider work experience. You will have a degree or necessary equivalent skills from your work experience and will be able to demonstrate at least 12 months experience applying your research and analysis skills in a relevant environment.

Please note the role profile spans three grades (6-8) with progression opportunities between the grades based on skills and experience.

Grade 6 = £35,570.00 - £39,481.00

Grade 7 = £40,444.00 - £44,253.00

Grade 8 = £45,529.00 - £49,817.00

Essential skills and experience
The role profile sets out in full the skills and experience of all Lead Analysts in the GMCA Research team.

• In your application, please clearly set out how your skills and experience meet the essential skills and experience of the Lead Analyst role profile, paying particular attention to the essential skills and experience of your preferred role itemised below. Applications will be assessed principally against these essential areas, with supplementary consideration of the specified desirable skills and experience also listed. Please write no more than 1,500 words.
• As part of the application, you will be asked to state which post is your first preference (Post 1 or Post 2).

Do not be put off if you feel less strong on some of the areas we are looking for. Different people bring different skills, knowledge and experience, and we are keen that you apply and have the opportunity to show us the strengths that you will bring to the role.

Post 1: Lead Analyst (Children and Young People), with an anticipated specialism in markets and economic analysis, appraisal and demand modelling:
Due to the technical skills and experience required for this role, we expect to recruit to this post at grade 7. The role profile spans three grades (6-8) with progression opportunities between the grades based on skills and experience. Responsibilities for each grade and expected skills and experience are set out in the role profile.

The core responsibilities of this post will include:

• delivering quantitative analysis of the children’s social care market including providers, utilisation, fees and expenditure
• modelling anticipated demand for children in care placements among Greater Manchester local authorities using our demand modelling app
• cost benefit analysis and appraisal in support of business case development
• maintaining and developing our demand modelling app and the data platform through which individual level data on children in care is received from Greater Manchester local authorities
• providing other social research, strategic analysis and intelligence on regional sufficiency.

Essential skills and experience
1. Excellent ICT skills, especially:

• Strong Python programming experience with a focus on data engineering (or transferable programming experience e.g. R)
• Understanding of data pipeline architecture and ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes

2. Physical responsibility, especially:

• Experience with cloud services and infrastructure management
• Proficiency in version control using GitHub

3. Strong analytical capacity and experience of data collection, especially:

• Strong quantitative research skills
• Experience of working with complex datasets and developing new data collections and data pipelines

4. Strong interpersonal / communication skills with an attention to detail, especially:

• Ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical audiences
• Ability to identify areas for future improvements in work

Desirable skills and experience

• Understanding of forecasting and demand modelling (part of “Strong analytical capacity” in the role profile)
• Understanding of appraisal and cost benefit analysis (part of “Experience of quantitative and qualitative research and analysis including evaluation” in the role profile)
• Ability to develop new approaches to data analytics and visualisation techniques (part of “Physical responsibility” in the role profile)
• Understanding of information governance, “safe research” principles and practices, and/or safe researcher certification (part of “We hold ourselves to a high standard” within the values and behaviours of the role profile)
• Proficiency in building reporting dashboards (Python-based, Tableau or PowerBI) (part of “Excellent ICT skills” within the role profile)
• Expertise in data orchestration tools (for example Dagster) (part of “Excellent ICT skills” within the role profile)
• Experience with containerisation technologies (for example Docker) (part of “Excellent ICT skills” with the role profile)

Post 2: Lead Analyst (Children and Young People), with an anticipated specialism in delivery and outcomes monitoring, and the development of data dashboards and tools
We expect to recruit to this post at grade 6. The role profile spans three grades (6-8) with progression opportunities between the grades based on skills and experience. Responsibilities for each grade and expected skills and experience are set out in the role profile.

The core responsibilities of this post will include:

• building dashboards, developing automated reports and providing ongoing intelligence to monitor the delivery and outcomes of the Regional Care Cooperative and Foster for Greater Manchester recruitment hub
• maintaining and developing our online interactive platform to communicate our strategic needs with the provider market.
• maintaining and developing the data platform through which individual level data on children in care is received from Greater Manchester local authorities
• providing other social research, strategic analysis and intelligence on regional sufficiency.
  
  

Essential skills and experience
1. Excellent ICT skills, especially:

• Strong proficiency in data analysis and/or data dashboard applications (e.g. Tableau or PowerBI)
• Experience of programming languages (e.g. python or R)
• Understanding of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes

2. Strong analytical capacity and experience of data collection, especially:

• Experience of preparing and analysing datasets, including locally collected and/or new datasets (for example, including data cleaning, data quality assurance and data linkage)

3. Physical responsibility, especially:

• Experience of managing data tools and assets, and advising others on their use

4. Relationship management, especially:

• Experience of working with end users of analysis and ensuring that the data work, research and/or analysis produced meets their needs
  
  

Desirable skills and experience

• Ability to develop new approaches to data analytics and visualisation techniques (part of “Physical responsibility” in the role profile)
• Experience of supporting non-technical colleagues to utilise and embed evidence within decision making (part of “Strong interpersonal / communication skills” in the role profile)
• Understanding of information governance, “safe research” principles and practices, and/or safe researcher certification (part of “We hold ourselves to a high standard” within the values and behaviours of the role profile)

Recruitment stages
Candidates successfully sifted at application stage will be invited to interview. All candidates invited to interview will be required to complete a short pre-interview assessment which will be sent to them in advance of the interview to be returned within 24 hours.

The pre-interview assessment will require candidates to use a dataset to answer a series of questions. This will require the use of a programming language of the candidate’s own choosing such as Python or R.

The interview will entail a question and answer section in relation to the pre-interview assessment, followed by interview questions with a small panel.

About us:

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) brings together the cityregion’s ten councils and key partners including Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) and Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) - to deliver the Greater Manchester Strategy. Our shared vision is to create a thriving city region where everyone can live a good life. We work to grow an inclusive economy and ensure people have what they need to live happy, healthy lives, tackling inequalities. Our policy department include Digital, Economy, Education, Work & Skills, Environment, Place Making, Public Service Reform, and Safer & Stronger Communities - who are supported by our essential corporate functions like Finance, Legal & Governance, People Services, Procurement and Communications.

We value the diversity of our employees, and aim to recruit a workforce which reflects our diverse communities across Greater Manchester. We encourage applications from all suitably qualified individuals, irrespective of people's age, disability, Trans status and Non-binary identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. We have guidance in place to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process, including the consideration of reasonable adjustments for people who have a disability.

To find out more about working for us please click here: https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/

Our offer:

We are committed to offering training and development. In relation to these roles, this is expected to include:

• Eligibility to the lead analyst progression framework, which spans up to grade 8
• 5% professional development time per month
• Being part of a wider team of principal researchers, lead analysts and analysts
• Membership of the GMCA Quantitative Specialism Network and/or the GMCA Appraisal and Evaluation Network
• Joining a community of regional quantitative data managers and analysts at the forefront of regional data work in children’s social care data
• Access to the ONS Learning Hub training platform (as used by the Government Statistical Service)
• Sharing an office with the rest of the GMCA along with NHS Population Health.

More generally, in return for your hard work, we offer our employees a competitive package as part of our offer that you can find out more about here:

Greater Manchester Combined Authority - Home | greater.jobs