Richmond and Wandsworth recruit a Public Health Data Analyst to turn intelligence into action
Richmond and Wandsworth Councils are seeking a Public Health Data Analyst for a 12-month fixed-term role within the Adult Social Care and Public Health Directorate, with work spanning Richmond and Wandsworth and a minimum of 60% office-based attendance. The post carries a salary of £44,982 to £54,507 and is framed around a simple but demanding remit: convert large, complex datasets into intelligence that can shape local strategy, service planning, and interventions aimed at improving health and reducing inequality.
The appointment sits inside the Assurance and Innovation Division, where data is not treated as an administrative by-product but as a tool for identifying need, tracking performance, and testing whether services are reaching the residents who need them most. In public health, that kind of work often determines whether a need is described after the fact or anticipated early enough to matter. A well-constructed analysis can expose variation in access, reveal unmet need in neighbourhoods or population groups, and give commissioners a defensible basis for deciding where limited resources should go.
The role is built around the kind of intelligence work that sits behind statutory and strategic products. Core outputs include the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, the Annual Director of Public Health Report, the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment, health needs assessments, dashboards, and service evaluations. Each of these outputs depends on disciplined data handling and the ability to move between technical analysis and practical interpretation without losing accuracy. A needs assessment is only useful if the numbers are credible, the patterns are clearly described, and the implications are actionable for planners and frontline teams.
One sentence captures the stakes: poor analysis can leave a gap between population need and the services intended to meet it.
The council is asking for someone who can work with large and sensitive datasets, apply statistical and epidemiological methods, and produce outputs that are both rigorous and readable. The description places equal weight on quantitative skill and interpretation, which reflects the reality of modern public health intelligence. Analysts are expected not only to calculate trends, rates, and comparisons, but also to explain what those patterns mean for service delivery, health equity, and local decision-making. In practice, that means moving from rows of data to a clear narrative about where outcomes are improving, where they are flat, and where they are deteriorating.
A substantial part of the role involves data and literature review, critical appraisal of evidence, and the preparation of evidence-based summaries and recommendations. That work is especially relevant when councils are deciding how to design, implement, or evaluate policies and programmes intended to improve wellbeing. Public health decisions rarely hinge on a single dataset. They are more often informed by triangulation: local surveillance, service data, published evidence, professional judgement, and the lived reality of residents. The analyst in this post will be expected to help assemble that picture and translate it into something that can guide action.
The technical expectations are explicit. Candidates are expected to bring experience with tools such as Excel, Power BI, Power Query, SQL, R, or Python, alongside the ability to manage confidential information securely and in line with information governance, data protection, and data-sharing requirements. Those requirements are not merely procedural. In public health, data often relates to small populations, sensitive needs, or vulnerable groups, which raises the stakes for secure handling and careful interpretation. A misstep in governance can compromise trust; a weak analytical method can distort priorities.
The post also places emphasis on collaboration. The successful analyst will work with public health colleagues, operational teams, commissioners, the Adults Performance Team, Corporate Insight colleagues, and external knowledge networks including the London Knowledge and Intelligence Service. That cross-functional setting matters because public health intelligence is rarely produced in isolation. Insights gain value when they are embedded in service conversations, translated for non-technical audiences, and used to support choices about prevention, commissioning, and performance improvement.
The advertised candidate profile points to a professional who is curious, organised, and comfortable in a busy environment with competing priorities. Experience in public health, health intelligence, social care, research, analytics, or a related data-focused field is sought, along with a degree in public health, economics, biomedical science, statistics, data science, another numerate or health-related subject, or equivalent experience. Communication skills are presented as essential rather than optional, because the role depends on making complex evidence understandable to people who may not work with data every day.
There is also a clear operational rhythm to the recruitment process. The closing date is Sunday 1 November 2026, with shortlisting scheduled for the week beginning Monday 2 November 2026 and interviews set for Friday 20 November 2026. A technical analytical assessment will form part of selection, indicating that the councils intend to test applied competence rather than rely on qualifications alone. For a role of this kind, that approach is sensible: the quality of public health decision-making is only as strong as the analyst’s ability to work through evidence under real-world constraints.
The job sits within a wider commitment to inclusion, equality, and safeguarding, and the councils note support for reasonable adjustments and a disability-confident approach. Those points matter in workforce terms, but the heart of the post is the same throughout: better data, better interpretation, and better use of evidence to guide local public health action. The central challenge will be turning complex information into decisions that hold up under scrutiny and genuinely improve health and wellbeing across two diverse London boroughs.
The post is fixed term for 12 months, so the analyst will need to deliver quickly, adapt to shifting priorities, and leave behind intelligence products that remain useful after the contract ends. In public health, the strongest output is not the most elaborate report; it is the one that changes what people do next.