Senior Researcher – Polling
Prolific
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Remote
Location: United Kingdom
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Job Level
About the role
- Designing and executing polling and public opinion programmes: methodology development, questionnaire design, sampling strategy, weighting approaches, and data collection oversight
- Innovating on polling methodology: tackling hard problems, testing new sampling and data approaches, exploring synthetic data augmentation, and validating methods against real-world outcomes.
- Analysing and reporting: producing clear, compelling reports for internal teams, external partners, and media audiences
- Acting as a public face for Prolific's research: serving as one of our media liaisons for polling releases, providing expert commentary, and representing Prolific at industry events
- Building our polling infrastructure: collaborating with Marketing and Design teams to create data visualisations and develop a centralised polling hub
- Managing external relationships: working with PR partners, our marketing team, and cultivating media contacts to maximise the reach and impact of our work
- Contributing to wider research projects: applying your research expertise to other initiatives within the sciences team. Our current agenda includes evaluation of synthetic data approaches, data quality and representativeness research, and external research collaborations. We're looking for someone who wants to shape this agenda, not just execute on polling.
Requirements
- Masters degree or higher in political science, survey methodology, statistics, or a related quantitative field
- Strong technical knowledge of polling methodologies — raking, post-stratification, MRP — including when to apply them and the ability to implement them in code
- 2+ years experience delivering public opinion research outside of academia (i.e., you've shipped polls that people have actually seen)
- An ideas-focused thinker who is able to tackle novel methods and innovative concepts head on
- Familiarity with the practicalities of online panel research, including the trade-offs involved in non-probability sampling
- A solid understanding of the UK and US polling landscape (and ideally beyond)
- Comfortable operating autonomously and building something from the ground up
- Confident communicator who can translate complex methodology for non-technical audiences
- Genuine curiosity about research beyond polling. You're excited by questions around data quality, representativeness, and the future of online research.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation
- Benefits
- Flexible remote working options
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard skills
polling methodologiesrakingpost-stratificationMRPdata collectiondata analysisdata visualisationsynthetic data augmentationquestionnaire designsampling strategy
Soft skills
ideas-focused thinkinginnovative problem solvingconfident communicationautonomous operationrelationship managementcollaborationcuriosity about researchreportingpublic speakingmedia liaison
Certifications
Masters degreePhD