Social Researcher Review

A cycle of collating data for each quarter of the Participation Survey and publishing it. Quality Assuring the publication documents. Attending team meetings to keep track of progress and any hurdles the team is facing.

Developed professional report writing and putting together summary documents for ministers. Learnt how to code visualisations on R. Progressed further my oral communication and online speaking due to the role being hybrid. Developed leadership skills when leading on publications myself.

I was given some responsibility towards the middle-end of my placement. For example, leading some quarterly publications myself and managing the teams time around this. As well as leading on a roadshows project after our annual publication in order to share the findings to our stakeholders and respective policy teams.

I reveries great support during my placement. Whether that was from my line manager with any questions I had or the wider team and seniors. Colleagues were super approachable if there was any concerns or queries.

Unfortunately being the only person from my team based in the North West, the office’a atmosphere wasn’t the most thrilling. I didn’t know that many people around me and everyone was part of either different teams of departments I had no relation to. However when meeting my team down in London the culture was friendly, inclusive and supportive.

I enjoyed receiving the valuable experience my placement provided and the vast government knowledge. Although looking at the social side and relationship building, I think that is something I missed out on and hope it improves for the next placement students.

Yes

Push yourself into projects you would like to be involved in. If there’s an area you’d like experience in talk to your Line manager and reach that experience yourself. There’s many avenues you can go down in civil service so I would definitely recommend to get as much experience from different ones as you can.