About the job

Job summary

Dstl’s Counter Terrorism and Security division (CTS) is looking for two versatile statisticians who want to work collaboratively to contribute to projects that will save lives, whilst developing their skills as leading statisticians.

CTS Division primarily delivers science and technology to support the UK government in the fight against crime and terrorism. The Division’s work includes supporting the military, security services and emergency services on the front line, delivering engineering solutions to urgent problems, and investing in new technology and capabilities for future and emerging threats.

CTS Division has a wide range of customers including the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office and other government departments. CTS is staffed by skilled practitioners and houses specialist laboratories, workshops and facilities, which together enable Dstl to respond rapidly to operational demands and ensure that the UK retains operational advantage. The Division maintains the Sovereign UK energetics capability and provides a source of threat information to the rest of Dstl.

We recognise the importance and value of statistics to our work. Statistics can:

• Underpin our research with experimental design and analysis, for example giving confidence that the trial of a new piece of equipment will determine if it is safe and effective.
• Provide rigour and understanding in developing fields such as machine learning and data science, for example helping to understand the robustness of models.
• Help to understand the future using probabilistic analysis, for example applying techniques such as game theory and Bayesian inference to explore future scenarios.

Working for Dstl you will have the opportunity to combine delivering high impact for customers with doing in depth research. You will also be able to balance your role with your life outside of work as we encourage and support flexible working.

Dstl recognises the importance of diversity and inclusion as people from diverse backgrounds bring fresh ideas. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment in which each employee fulfils their potential and maximises their contribution.

We particularly welcome female and ethnic minority applicants and those from the LGBTQI community, as they are under-represented within Dstl at these levels.

Job description

In this role you will:
•    Support a range of projects to make best use of statistical design of experiments and analysis in their activities so that they can make best use of the resources available.
•    Provide technical leadership and advice.
•    Support, direct and mentor junior statisticians and other interested scientists wanting to improve their knowledge of statistics.
•    Research into specialist areas of statistics that are of particular relevance to Dstl, for example design of experiments for small sample sizes.
•    Provide technical review and quality assurance of analysis generated by others, including extra mural contracted work.
•    Communicate statistical analysis and uncertainty to non-technical audiences.
•    Build effective relationships across the CTS division and Dstl as well as with stakeholders and suppliers.
•    Develop resources to assist other scientists in applying statistical methods.
•    Partner with project teams to develop innovative solutions and translate stakeholder requirements into project deliverables.

You will be part of a team of mathematicians and statisticians who engage with a wide range of exciting science and technology across Dstl. You will provide technical leadership of projects, or work packages within projects, ensuring the work is completed to time. You will be expected to mentor and develop people working on your projects, working alongside a Project Manager, who will be responsible for the overall delivery of the work, however you will be expected to provide technical leadership and ensure a high standard of quality.

You will not have any line management responsibility, but you will be expected to develop members of staff working with you on your projects.

At the higher level you will be responsible for leading engagement with customers and stakeholders to understand, shape and develop their requirements and grow the statistics capability within CTS.

Person specification

We're looking for people who have:

Essential Qualifications
•    Relevant scientific degree with substantial statistical content or experience in undertaking statistical design and analysis with a science background.

Essential Skills
•    Secure knowledge of a variety of statistical techniques and their applications.
•    Ability to report on probabilistic outcomes and explain uncertainty.
•    Adept at solving problems, particularly in data analysis.
•    Ability to take a logical and systematic approach to problem solving.
•    Ability to understand and convey complex issues in a clear and concise way, including relevant caveats and limitations, both verbally and in written form.
•    Ability to effectively organise / prioritise workload.
•    Strong Excel and analytical coding skills (e.g. knowledge of R or Python or Matlab) or experience of using statistical software.
•    Able to design experiments for both physical and simulated/synthetic data so that the conclusions drawn have validity, precision and coverage.

Essential Experience
•    Experience of research level statistics applied to real-world problems such as mixed effects modelling, pattern recognition, chemometric or biometrics.
•    Experience in experimental design and evaluation.
•    The ability to work with scientists and engineers to understand complex systems or scenarios and provide statistical advice to encourage best practice in experimental design and analysis.
•    Experience of partnering with stakeholders across a technical organisation to identify knowledge, skill and behaviour gaps as well as long term capability requirements.
•    The ability to challenge effectively where processes could be improved.
•    A desire to mentor others to improve their use of statistics
•    Good verbal and written communication and report writing skills.
•    Using code in R / Python / Matlab to apply statistical techniques in order to analyse and compare data sets.
•    Working on projects that involve uncertainty quantification.
•    Leading small teams to deliver high-quality statistical work and communicating results both orally and on paper.

For the Level 5 role:
•    Working on complex and non-routine problems, including design and development (within a framework of accepted practice and procedure).
•    Communicating complex and unfamiliar ideas in a clear and concise way to a non-technical audience, adapting style as appropriate.
•    Leading projects or teams of people to undertake problem solving activities and/or implement solutions.
•    Identifying milestones as part of project delivery.
•    Writing clearly and unambiguously.
 

For the Level 6 role (in addition to the above from Level 5):
•    Translating customer requirements into programmes and developing potential new opportunities as appropriate.
•    Bringing together ideas to create new concepts.
•    Interpreting and translating the strategic intent to a meaningful and relevant level.
•    Reviewing the work of others.
•    Acting as a mentor and a role model.
•    Managing customer and/or supplier relationships to effect long term benefits.
•    Ensuring clarity of goals, direction and standards.
•    Networking with peers and within professional bodies.

Important Information

Our work in defence, security and intelligence requires our employees to be UK Nationals who are able to gain a high level of security clearance to undertake the projects we are involved in to protect us from security threats. For this reason, only UK Nationals will be able to apply for this role. If you are an international or dual-national candidate, and you think you have the skills we need, please consider applying to any of our government, security or defence partners.

 This role will require full UK security clearance and you should have resided in the UK for the past 5 years. For some roles Developed Vetting will also be required, in this case you should have resided in the UK for the past 10 years.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,970, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory contributes £9,711 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 (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.We want you to have your best chance of success in our recruitment process, so if at any stage of the application process you would like help or assistance please contact the Dstl Recruitment Team dstlrecruitment@dstl.gov.uk and we will do all we can to support you.

Sifting will take place week commencing the 22nd January 2024 with interviews to be arranged from the 5th February 2024. (Interviews will require a 10 min presentation - title to be shared if successful to interview stage).

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

This job is not open to candidates who hold a dual nationality.

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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.