Equality, diversity and inclusion is a key focus for Skills Development Scotland (SDS) as reflected in our most recent Equality Mainstreaming report for 2025-2029.
This internship sits within the SDS Evaluation and Research Team (E&R) and will support the development and production of the 2027 SDS Equality Evidence Review (EER) – a key resource summarising the latest evidence on education and employment outcomes across equality groups. The EER helps inform the SDS Equality Outcomes and reporting, and provides colleagues with an up to date evidence base to support policy and practice.
The SDS E&R team provides high quality, robust evidence and insight to support SDS in meeting its goals in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion.
The main focus of the internship will be to support the development and production of the EER. This will involve collating insights from a range of evidence sources including SDS primary research; SDS administrative data; the SDS PhD Programme; and external data and literature. This will provide the opportunity to use and develop a range of research skills.
Specific objectives of the internship will be to:
- Undertake descriptive statistical analysis of SDS research with young people and apprentices, focusing on analysis by equality group.
- Update data on educational attainment and labour market outcomes from external data sources.
- Carry out a rapid evidence review of recent data and evidence on education and employment outcomes across equality groups.
- Ensure the reliability and validity of data sources.
- Identify gaps in evidence in relation to different equality groups and how these might be filled.
- Draft reports for each equality group.
- Present findings to variety of groups across SDS.
The PhD intern will be fully supported by the SDS Evaluation and Research team, with lots of opportunities for teamwork and shared learning.
