Sophie Birtwistle

Sophie joined the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) in 2023 as a Research Assistant before being promoted to a Researcher in 2024. Since joining ScotCen, she has worked on numerous large-scale surveys across a range of policy areas including the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS), the Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey, and the Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare (SSELC), as well as mixed methods projects such as Behaviour in Scottish Schools (BiSS). 

She also works with Sir John Curtice on the upkeep of both What Scotland Thinks (WST) and What UK Thinks (WUKT), which provides impartial, up-to-date information on public attitudes towards governance of the constituent parts of the UK, and attitudes towards the EU and the UK’s decision to leave. 

Prior to working at ScotCen, she studied Social Policy with Quantitative Methods at the University of Edinburgh and, as part of her degree, completed an internship at ScotCen working on the Scottish Health Survey (SheS).