BBC secondment opportunities

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) Emerging Talent team are pleased to offer four exciting opportunities for experienced analysts to work within the BBC for a three-month placement in 2027. The first placement will start in January 2027.

These secondments will be based at the headquarters of BBC News in London. Successful applicants will be expected to travel and work in London, though there may be scope to negotiate a hybrid working arrangement (subject to agreement with the Head of Statistics at the BBC, with the expectation of being in the office a minimum of three days per week). There is potential for one of the secondments to be of located in Salford, however, there is limited support in the Salford Office so you would need to be able to work independently. If working in Salford, you would also need to secure budget and be willing to travel to London for your Induction and monthly visit to meet BBC’s Head of Statistics and his team.

The roles would suit a Grade 7 or experienced Senior Executive Officer (SEO) from one of the analytical professions. Your salary for this professional development opportunity will continue to be paid by your parent department, and departments will not be able to claim salary re-imbursements from the BBC. This means applicants should have the approval of their line manager and divisional director before applying.

Role and responsibilities

The successful applicants will work closely with the BBC’s Head of Statistics to fact check, provide figures and briefings, and ensure the robust and accurate use of statistics in any BBC outputs across a range of topics. This will include:

• advising on the interpretation and presentation of statistical claims in surveys, press releases and news stories
• helping journalists find the right data source and come to conclusions supported by the evidence when working with official statistics
• conducting ad-hoc statistical analyses of data for new stories with the statistics and data journalism teams
• promoting good statistics and statistical thinking to journalists

Person specification

The successful applicants will have:

• strong communication skills with ability to provide advice and share knowledge with customers and colleagues
• the ability to influence decision making, working with credibility and proactively with customers to share knowledge and information
• experience of forming effective relationships with stakeholders and the ability to utilise a wide network
• a broad and demonstrative understanding of official statistics and ability to look at the broader spectrum of data available
• the ability to develop and maintain reputation, building trust through quality assurance of work

Applying

All loans and secondment opportunities are offered based on current satisfactory performance. Applicants must obtain their line-manager’s permission to apply and an endorsement of their application. Applicants must also have approval for release to start in January 2027 should they be allocated to the first placement.

The successful candidates will be representing their department and the Government Statistical Service (GSS). This means they will be expected to adhere to their professional standards and the Civil Service code of objectivity and impartiality.

Please send a brief expression of interest to GSS.Careers@ons.gov.uk stating how you meet the requirements, as outlined in the person specification. Your expression of interest should be no longer than a single side of A4 paper in length. Please also indicate which of the following periods you would like to be placed in:

• January to March 2027
• April to June 2027
• July to September 2027
• October to December 2027

Every effort will be taken to allocate you to your preferred period; however, this cannot always be guaranteed. We will carry out a selection exercise based on the roles, responsibilities and person specification criteria.

Hear from previous secondees

You can read the following blogs from previous secondees:

• “Behind the news: a statistician at BBC New Broadcasting House” – a blog post by Amy Jackson
• “Three months inside the BBC” – a blog post by Tom Curd