Senior Data Researcher (JHB Hybrid)

Senior Data Researcher (JHB - Hybrid)

IT - Analyst, Data Management

Johannesburg - Gauteng - South Africa

ENVIRONMENT:

PLAY a critical role in enabling data-driven decision-making, programme improvement, and organisational learning as your expertise as a Senior Data Analyst is sought by a Joburg-based Community Upliftment Programme. The role will focus on enhancing internal analytical capacity, supporting strategic insights, and ensuring high-quality data governance and use across the organisation and network. The successful incumbent must possess a Masters Degree in Education/Psychology/Economics or similar discipline with 5 years of experience in Data Analysis, Data Science, or related fields & strong quantitative and analytical skills, including proficiency with Stata, R, or SPSS, Power BI, Tableau and SQL.

DUTIES:

Data Analysis and Insights Generation

• Analyse data to generate actionable insights that inform strategic decisions and programme improvements.
• Create, enhance and support the use of interactive dashboards and analytics tools to improve data-driven decision-making across the organisation and network.
• Provide statistical methodology to design and execute experiments, including evaluations and research projects.
• Ensure that data analysis and insights are aligned with broader strategic goals related to child outcomes and early learning.
• Support real-time monitoring and feedback loops to enable rapid adjustments and responsive decision-making.
• Identify patterns, trends, and correlations in data to inform programme adaptation and innovation.
• Write up findings in accessible and understandable formats for audiences of varying technical ability.
• Create insights briefs and reports to communicate key findings and recommendations.

Supporting Organisational Learning and Adaptive Strategy

• Enable teams to leverage insights for learning, programme improvements, and innovation, including rapid experimentation.
• Co-create the conditions for network-wide rapid learning, iterative experimentation, and collective intelligence.
• Translate complex data into actionable insights tailored to different audiences (e.g., programme teams, leadership, network partners).
• Provide training and capacity-building to strengthen data literacy and improve the organisations ability to engage with data for strategic decision-making.
• Work closely with the Senior MEL Manager and programme teams and external partners to integrate data insights into programme design and delivery.

Co-Developing Research and Evaluation Agenda

• Collaborate with the Research team to design and implement research and evaluation strategies.
• Co-conceptualise and co-create research and/or evaluation questions, studies, and terms of reference.
• Provide input into research design, data analysis, and interpretation.

Data Governance and Quality Assurance -

• Together with the SDI team, enable and coordinate data governance, including data availability, accessibility, integrity, quality (including accuracy, consistency, and reliability), usability, security, and regulatory compliance (in collaboration with IT and Legal teams).
• Ensure data handling and analysis are conducted with high ethical standards, safeguarding privacy and equity considerations in line with the programme values.
• Conduct assessments of key data assets and identify potential risks or gaps, including data process mapping.
• Support the development and maintenance of metadata to ensure data consistency and reliability.
• Establish systems to monitor data hygiene, conduct regular quality checks, and address discrepancies, in collaboration with the IT Department.

External Engagement and Knowledge Sharing

• Support the preparation of data and insights for funder reports, impact statements, and advocacy purposes.
• Respond to queries from local and international researchers and analysts.
• Engage with external partners to manage data sharing agreements and restructure data according to their needs.
• Supervise and evaluate the work of external consultants where necessary.
• Represent the programme at relevant national and international events to share insights and learnings.

REQUIREMENTS:

Qualifications

• A minimum of a Master's Degree in Education, Psychology, Economics, Social Sciences, Statistics, or a related field.

Experience/Skills

• At least 5 years of experience in Data Analysis, Data Science, or related fields.
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills, including proficiency with statistical software (e.g., Stata, R, or SPSS)
• Excellent knowledge of and ability to work with SQL databases.
• A strong working and theoretical knowledge of statistical principles, especially relating to designing and running randomised control trials.
• Experience with data visualisation tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau).
• Proven ability to drive continuous improvement in data systems and insights generation.
• Strong communication and report-writing skills, with the ability to explain complex data to non- technical audiences.
• Experience in managing and working with large datasets and relational databases.
• Familiarity with data governance, including privacy, compliance, and security requirements.

Desirable

• Experience working in a social impact or nonprofit context.
• Familiarity with survey software (e.g. SurveyCTO) and CRMs (Microsoft Dynamics) as well as Azure.
• Experience in building capacity for data use and improving data literacy across teams.
• Experience in, or familiarity with, Early Learning, ECD, Education, Public Health.

ATTRIBUTES:

• Ability to work collaboratively and effectively in a cross-functional team environment.
• Demonstrated ability to design and implement rapid experiments.
• Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Behaving trustworthily: being reliable, accepting, open, congruent (i.e. integrity).
• Learning curiously, incl. learning how by doing differently -
• Clear curiosity (asking questions, questioning assumptions, doing differently, trying things).
• Track record of learning.
• Openness to & appetite for feedback.
• Familiarity with and curiosity about -
• Societal scale.
• Systems doing-and-thinking.
• Design thinking & iterative designing.
• Driving to succeed.

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