Operational Research Analysts - Billy's story

Hi, my name’s Billy. I work as a Senior Scientific Officer for the Irregular Migration and Border Enforcement Analysis (IMBEA) team. I have worked here for just over 3 years.

One of the main reasons I joined is that the department and the team works on issues of such significance for the UK.?

By working in the Home Office, I have a great opportunity to tackle complicated and interesting issues, in areas that don’t necessarily have clear and straightforward answers. This is particularly true in Border Security, as you can never be certain how organised crime groups are operating, so creative analytical thinking is required! With an academic background in geography, it is important for my work area to have a geospatial element, and my expertise in borders and migration mean I can really thrive in the Borders Analysis team.

At school, geography was always my favourite subject, closely followed by maths. I studied Geography at university, as I loved the idea of gaining experience of numerate methods being applied to real-world situations – and I loved the idea of a degree where I could use computer models in a practical, tangible way.

Before working here, I completed a placement in Statistics for the Ministry of Defence and joined the Government Operational Research Service (GORS) fast stream after university – with my first posting in prison statistics at the Ministry of Justice. After 18 months I moved into Detection and Targeting in Borders Analysis, and 6 months ago moved to Irregular Migration and Border Enforcement Analysis.?

On a day to day basis, I have the opportunity to lead on project delivery and stakeholder engagement, while still gaining experience in the technical application of quantitative analysis. I lead on project development through managing analysts across my area and I communicate with stakeholders across the organisation. Most of my stakeholders are in the Home Office, but I also get to work cross-governmentally and collaborate often with counterparts and colleagues in other international administrations, including in the USA.

Throughout the week, I usually spend around 40% of my time in meetings – either with stakeholders or with other analysts in my team to discuss project progress, and the remaining 60% of the time delivering these outputs. The delivery can be problem structuring, scoping, model building and communicating the outputs of my analysis. Each week is different, and I have the opportunity to work on a range of projects throughout the year.?

I love the subject matter of irregular migration and border security. The picture of irregular migration is always changing, and the criminality driving irregular migration (organised crime gangs) means you will never fully be able to know how they operate on the other side of the Border. This uncertainty provides great opportunity to use creative techniques to ensure the findings we provide are actually useful! Additionally, I love the fact that every week is different – my team are often working on reactive and ad hoc requests, so the work program rarely sees the same output delivered twice.?

The most substantial benefit of working where is I have is the opportunity to work on projects ‘behind the scenes’ – ie, with access you’d be unable to get outside of Government. The things I work on are often in the news. Plus, you get some great characters in the Home Office and Border Force.

To find out more and to apply visit this advert?https://ow.ly/lYqB50QQirM ?for roles in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester and this advert for roles in Croydon, London, Sheffield and Manchester?https://ow.ly/LkYh50QQirO .?

Visit our Eventbrite page to register for our online events for these roles on 19th March https://ow.ly/7mhv50QU4kB and 21st March https://ow.ly/KHV750QU4kE

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