Research Assistant (Quantitative)

Grade 6, salary: £30,619 to £35,308 pro rata

Childlight – Global Child Safety Institute, based at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Moray House School of Education and Sport

Fixed Term Contract – Starting as soon as possible till 30th April 2026;

Full-time / 35 hours per week

Child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSEA) is a global problem that requires a global response. However, the lack of reliable and comprehensive data relating to CSEA is a major inhibitor to developing more effective and evidence driven prevention, response strategies, and policies.

Childlight has been established, and embedded within the University of Edinburgh, and will take a data driven, evidence-based approach to better understand the prevalence and nature of CSEA globally. This data and analysis will be used by policy makers and practitioners across the world to make better informed decisions to safeguard children from CSEA.

The opportunity:

The Research Assistant post will join and support a cadre of researchers at all career stages to further specific aspects of Childlight’s research. This post specifically will be responsible for providing quantitative data assistance to analyse the prevalence and nature of CSEA from a variety of datasets. The post may also assist in conducting meta-analyses or helping to support other research and research administration related activities in the topic areas of CSEA to inform the foundational work of Childlight.

This is a full-time (35 hours), fixed-term post to 30th April 2026.

Your skills and attributes for success:

• Excellent analytical skills and the ability to generate ideas and solutions for safeguarding children.
• Experience of conducting a variety of quantitative analyses including preparing data
• Experience of conducting literature reviews
• Experience of working with diverse stakeholders in relation to research
• Experience of undertaking research administrative tasks

Click here for a copy of the full job description.

As a valued member of our team you can expect:

An exciting, positive, creative, challenging and rewarding place to work. We give you support, nurture your talent and reward success. You will benefit from a competitive reward package and a wide range of staff benefits, which includes a generous holiday entitlement, a defined benefits pension scheme , staff discounts, family friendly initiatives , flexible working and much more. Access our staff benefits page for further information and use our reward calculator to find out the total value of pay and benefits provided.

The University of Edinburgh holds a Silver Athena SWAN award in recognition of our commitment to advance gender equality in higher education. We are members of the Race Equality Charter and we are also Stonewall Scotland Diversity Champions, actively promoting LGBT equality.

Interviews will be held 2 weeks after advert closing date.

If invited for interview, you will be required to evidence your right to work in the UK. Further information is available on our right to work webpages.

The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers in this role. International applicants will therefore be unable to apply for and secure a Skilled Worker visa. They will only be able to take up this role if they can demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.