The Panel Manager is a new role and reflects the growth of RDS’s Researcher Access Service – the core platform for supporting researchers to apply for, and get access to, public sector data. The role holder will work closely with RDS’s delivery experts and the Public Health Scotland eDRIS team to help deliver a smooth-running service. They’ll also contribute to the development of the service as it scales.

They will lead the end-to-end management and governance of the RDS panel responsible for reviewing and approving secure access to administrative data for research. This role ensures that data access requests are assessed rigorously, ethically, and in line with regulatory and organisational standards. The postholder will play a key role in enabling safe data use while maintaining public trust and transparency.

About you

You will have a background in managing or supporting research and governance, and a good understanding of the use of anonymised data for research. You could have managed a panel before, or worked elsewhere in research, in governance or applying for data, for instance, and want to bring those skills to the “other side”. You’ll be accountable, discrete, highly organised, and demonstrate great attention to detail. You’ll be working with a broad range of people, so you’ll feel confident to build influential and collaborative relationships, facilitate discussions and support transparent decision making. Ideally, you’ll also understand the UK’s data access landscape, including Trusted Research Environments and data linkage initiatives and want to make the best panel and data service in the UK, in our approach to supporting secure and effective data research.  

We like to keep our application processes as simple and human centred as we can.

We just need your CV and a cover letter outlining how your skills and experience match the job and person specification.

Research Data Scotland is an Equal Opportunities employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All our hiring decisions are based on merit, qualifications and business needs. We’d really appreciate you sending a completed equalities monitoring form with your application, so we can ensure we are meeting our commitments.

Interviews will be held in w/c 3 November 2025.