About the job

Job summary

Job title – Head of Infectious Disease Modelling

Profession- Data & Analytics

Directorate – All Hazards Intelligence

Full Time equivalent - 37.5 hours

No of Roles – 1

Contract Type – Permanent

Location – Hybrid – Any Office

UKHSA operates a hybrid working model where business needs allow.  This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata,(averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's locations . Specialist or regional roles will be based at the appropriate UKHSA site. For certain roles, some additional flexibility may be possible, which will be agreed upon with the hiring manager based on individual requirements and business needs.

Working Pattern – Full Time/Flexible Working / Hybrid Working/ Home Working/ Part Time/ Job Share

Grade & Salary – Grade 6 National banding - £65,302 - £75,129 per annum. Outer London - £67,288- £76,967 per annum. Inner London - £69,275 - £78,805 per annum

New entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.

The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase. Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.

This role is to be appointed under Civil Service Terms & Conditions. Full details on the T&C’s are found https://www.ukhsa.reed.com/.

Closing Date – 25/02/2024. 23:55pm. Unfortunately, late applications will not be considered

Interview Date – W/C 11/03/2024 & 18/03/2024 Please note, these dates are subject to change.

Job description

Are you looking to contribute to a vital mission to save lives and improve health outcomes for UK citizens?

We are looking for a Grade 6 Team Leader for the Infectious Disease Modelling Team within the All Hazards Intelligence Directorate (AHI), part of the Data Analytics and Surveillance Group (DAS), within the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA), whose mission is to provide health security for the nation by protecting from infectious disease and external hazards. Team leaders in AHI oversee and coordinate analysis to inform assessment of hazards and threats to UK health security and public health.

The Infectious Disease Modelling team uses a range of tools from statistics, epidemic modelling and data science to provide timely insights into key public health questions. The team has been heavily involved in supporting incident response to the COVID-19 pandemic and more recently the mpox outbreak. Current work programmes include forecasting hospital demand for respiratory viruses, estimating key epidemiological parameters, real-time analysis and surveillance of novel Sars-CoV-2 variants, the Winter COVID Infection Survey, and modelling of climate-sensitive infectious diseases. The team collaborates closely with colleagues across directorates within the UKHSA, as well as teams within the NHS, Cabinet Office, and academia.

The post holder is responsible for overseeing the development, implementation and reporting of statistical and mathematical analyses of epidemiological data at the UKHSA. A strong background in modelling and assessment – using programming languages such as R, Python and Stan – will be essential to explore large existing datasets.

This post will require outstanding leadership to manage a team of highly-motivated and skilled modellers, data scientists, data engineers, health analysts and epidemiologists to deliver maximum impact and value.

This high-profile role ensures Ministers, CMOs and senior decision makers are serviced with timely, informative and accurate insights from data to enable decision making for the most pressing health issues. You will join a fast-paced environment with competing priorities and opportunities for improvement. You will also be required to work collaboratively with colleagues from across the agency, academia and wider public health family to ensure the best analysis and assessments are developed to support a variety of public health issues.

Job Overview

All Hazards Intelligence (AHI) provides all source intelligence assessments of public health hazards in the UK and globally, to support decision making at all levels across government. As a Team Leader in AHI for the Infectious Disease Modelling team, you will be at the heart of this mission, leading others in our mission and making impact every day.  

Our Analytical teams in AHI deliver UKHSA’s situational awareness, horizon scanning and assessment across all health hazards, bringing to bear our expertise and innovative approaches developed in response to COVID-19.  

Our Analytical teams support incident response and preparedness—working on a wide range of health hazards. Our products inform escalation and de-escalation decisions and ensure evidence and data are appropriately used to inform decision making. 

The work of the directorate spans a range of analytical objectives and themes across descriptive epidemiology, genomics, cluster analysis, vaccines, behavioural science, infectious disease and biostatistical modelling.  We also develop strategic research partnerships and foster innovation in data science. The directorate has strong links to other areas within UKHSA, as well as connections across Government with the NHS and DHSC and with academia.

In our Team Leaders, we look for exceptional and inspiring leaders who can coordinate the work of a diverse group to deliver impactful outputs. We invite applicants from a range of professional and academic backgrounds, which may include epidemiology, data science, statistical modelling, intelligence assessment and social research. You should be comfortable with the detail of analytical and assessment methods, but principally you will be responsible for leading others in creating these products, steering their work to be prioritised, outcome-focussed and tailored to customer needs.

Main duties of the job

 Key responsibilities include

• Provide leadership for a team of 15-20 highly technical and multi-disciplinary analysts and data scientists to develop and deliver a range of analysis and data products on health security and public health threats in the UK.
• Ability to design and provide leadership of complex modelling solutions that include Bayesian analysis, deep learning, and spatial modelling.
• Oversee the development of a comprehensive modelling analytical programme, ensuring key customer demands are understood, prioritised and resourced appropriately.
• Deliver analytical outputs (such as statistical analysis and mathematical modelling) to key stakeholders, often working to tight timescales and whilst managing competing demands.
• Communicate and clearly present key insights, up to the most senior levels, from a variety of analytical sources.
• Engage with partners in wider government, academia, and the private sector to gain access to new data sources and information.
• Building and sustaining key partnerships, within UKHSA, nationally and internationally, including the establishment of analytical collaborations.
• Assist communicable disease control, health protection and public health colleagues across the UK during major health protection incidents.
• Supporting the Division and Directorate on responses to Parliamentary Questions and FOI requests. 
• Developing the analytical capability across the Division and wider Directorate.
• Supporting wider corporate transformation as a member of the senior leadership team.

 

 

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Proven assessment and analytical skills (in a government public health policy context) and ensuring analytical outputs (including complex data and analysis) are policy suitable and have clear ‘so what’ implications for decision-making.
• Experienced manager and leader of a large team, demonstrating competencies expected at Grade 6 level. This includes inspiring and motivating staff, promoting diversity, building capability, innovation and managing conflicting pressures.
• Experience of building and validating complex Bayesian numerical mathematical/statistical models.
• Proficiency coding in Stan.
• Proficiency coding in R.
• Experience in creating and maintaining cloud-based analysis platforms
• Expertise in implementing best practice security solutions on cloud-based analysis platforms.
• Experience of leading and designing modelling projects in public health, health protection or epidemiology, including epidemiology for outbreak investigations.
• Experience of working at pace with short deadlines across multiple projects, being flexible and adaptable to change.
• Experience of leading strategic decision support, ideally in a health or national security environment.
• Ability to develop strong positive working relationships with stakeholders quickly to enable effective working across teams and organisations to coordinate activity.
• Strong communication skills (both written and oral) and the ability to communicate and influence seniors and peers. This includes experience of summarising and explaining complex analytical models to seniors in a clear and concise manner.
• Proven ability to deliver at pace on competing priorities in a challenging and complex environment.
• Experience of creating pipelines to collect large amounts of publicly available data using APIs (e.g. web-scraping).
• An undergraduate or master's degree in a quantitative discipline (e.g. mathematics, statistics or data science) with a strong background in modelling and applied statistics.

 

 

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience of working with a wide range of epidemiological data, such as genomic sequences, spatial distributions, and healthcare data.
• PhD (or equivalent experience) in a quantitative discipline.
• Experience in publishing of research papers in academic journals.
• Experience in spatial modelling and/or network analysis.
• Experience in SQL and processing large datasets.
• Experience in coding bespoke statistical models in probabilistic programming languages.
• Knowledge of data management, data transmission, data security, data quality, data analysis including descriptive statistics and data reporting.
• DV clearance or willingness to undergo the vetting process to obtain DV clearance

 

Qualifications required:         

• You will need, as a minimum to meet one of the following qualification standards:
• A generic qualification in a field with relevant quantitative or qualitative analysis competencies, or a specialist qualification in subjects such as:
• Epidemiology: as an MSc or a significant proportion of your degree.
• Economist: A degree at 2.1 (or above) or an MSc in Economics and be able to demonstrate substantial current experience in your career as a professional economist.  
• Statistician: A degree at 2.1 (or above) or an MSc in a subject with substantial statistical content, or equivalent experience, and be able to demonstrate relevant experience in your career as a professional statistician.
• Operational Research: A degree at 2.1 (or above) or an MSc in a highly numerate discipline, or equivalent experience, and be able to demonstrate relevant experience in your career in the relevant profession.
• Social Research: A degree at 2.1 (or above) in a relevant social science discipline or a MSc/MA and will need to have completed the social research knowledge test.
• Or equivalent professional experience.

 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £65,302, UK Health Security Agency contributes £17,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess your behaviours and technical skills. We will be assessing your statement of suitability at sift.

 

The interview process will involve a staff engagement exercise where you will be asked to present on a technical analytical project you have led to a group of analysts from across UKHSA. This will be followed by an interview, where we will assess the behaviours: Leadership, Seeing the bigger picture, Communicating and Influencing and Working Together.

 

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a statement of suitability of at most 1000 words which should outline your skills, experience, and achievements, providing evidence of your suitability for the role. You should make particular reference to how you align to the main duties section.

 

You will also be asked to provide information within the ‘Employer/ Activity history’ section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history. This will be used in the sifting process and will be scored. 

 

All applicants that progress to interview will be assessed on behaviours, strengths and technical skills through Success Profiles.

The interview will comprise of two elements. A staff engagement exercise where you will be asked to present on a technical analytical project you have led to a group of analysts from across UKHSA. This will be followed by an interview, where we will assess behaviours.

 

When assessing strengths, we want to find out whether you and the job role are a good fit. We will look at what you enjoy doing and what you do well and often. By ensuring that the role is the right fit for you, you are more likely to enjoy it and perform well.

The Behaviours tested during the interview stage will be:

• Seeing the bigger picture
• Leadership
• Communicating and influencing
• Working together

 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £65,302 UK Health Security Agency contributes £17,631 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%
• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

 

• Range of health and wellbeing support

Any move to UKHSA from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare.

 

Reserve List:

Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available.

If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.

 

DBS –

 

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

People working with government assets must complete basic personnel security standard checks.

Successful candidates mus meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. 

Some roles advertised may require Security Check (SC) or Developed Vetting (DV). It is therefore preferable but not essential for candidates to hold Security Check or Developed Vetting already or be willing to gain it while in post if necessary. Please indicate your level of clearance on your application. 

 

This role is Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants. Appointments to roles within UKHSA will be made in accordance with the Civil Service nationality rules. These can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nationality-rules This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• Nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with settled or pre-settled status or who apply for either status by the deadline of the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals working in the Civil Service
• Relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals who have built up the right to work in the Civil Service
• Certain family members of the relevant EU, EEA, Swiss or Turkish nationals

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles.

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 welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

It’s important to note that there are currently exceptions to applications being considered if your conviction relates to any of the following:

• life sentences
• arson
• sexual offences
• hate and terror offences

Some departments will also consider the specific offence against the nature of the business, i.e., a conviction for fraud may rule you out for a finance role

Complaint process:

The law requires that selection for appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's Recruitment Principles. 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 UKHSA Public Accountability Unit via email: Complaints1@ukhsa.gov.uk. If you are not satisfied with the response you receive from the Department, you can contact the Civil Service Commission: Visit the Civil Service Commission website.

 

Contact Details – Sophie.Rigney@reed.com

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

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.

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.