I’m Jessica Huntley Hewitt

Keen runner and baker; action movie enthusiast; Excel spreadsheets fanatic

A little bit of what I do

I joined IFF as a Trainee Research Executive (TRE) in 2011, following stints working at an FE College and teaching English in Japan. In my time at IFF I’ve worked on a huge range of projects, both in terms of sector and methodology; while I’ve become a specialist in complex large-scale data collections and surveys, I also love moderating focus groups and conducting user testing. I’ve worked on a lot of our biggest business surveys, including the Employer Skills Survey and the Annual Survey of Goods and Services, and carried out extensive research with employers and training providers on apprenticeships, including a project calculating the costs of delivering apprenticeship standards for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. On the qualitative side, I often conduct focus groups and depth interviews to test government communications with businesses and individuals, and to test user experiences with websites and services.

What I’ve achieved

I’m really proud of leading a couple of ongoing, highly complex projects – the Police Workforce Census (since 2012) and the Annual Survey of Goods and Services (since 2017). Both involved setting up brand new systems and processes, and it’s been really gratifying to see them successfully delivering crucial data for our clients year after year. I’ve also led the development of our core training course for new TREs, designed to take them through all the stages of a typical research project at IFF – having started as a TRE here myself, it’s very rewarding to work with our new starters as they take their first steps in their research careers!