For students embarking on their dissertation projects, or those supervising them, the UK Data Service offers dissertation resources, data and events to help with planning and completing a dissertation project.
Undergraduate students who use data from the UK Data Service in their dissertations can also enter the UK Data Service Dissertation Award.
UK Data Service student pages
The student web pages in our Learning Hub bring all our student resources together in one place. On these pages, you can find information about the UK Data Service, our data collections and how you can find and access these.
If you’re unsure about why you might want to use existing data sources in your research project, then watch our video Secondary analysis What and why?
You can also find out more about using survey data in a dissertation or finding and accessing data for your project.
Want to boost up your data skills? Try our interactive data skills modules for users who want to get to grips with key aspects of survey, longitudinal or aggregate data.
Useful data
The UK Data Service holds a wealth of data on many different topics that students may wish to explore in their dissertation projects.
Our student pages provide guides on top surveys for dissertation projects. This includes our Quick start guide: British Social Attitudes (BSA) and Quick start guide: Health Survey for England (HSE).
The Browse Data pages also allow you to search data by key themes or data types.
Free workshop
We’re also hosting the following free workshop for dissertation students:
Dissertation projects: Introduction to secondary analysis for qualitative and quantitative data – 11 March 2024, 10:00 am – 11:30 am
This workshop covers the research process for a secondary analysis project, including an overview of methodological and ethical issues. Join us to learn how to access and get started with quantitative and qualitative data and discuss some key points to include in your dissertation write-up.
Interested but can’t attend? Our YouTube channel includes recordings of all our webinars and workshops. You can also find video tutorials such as our using SPSS playlist.
Dissertation Award
The UK Data Service Dissertation Award recognises students who use data from the UK Data Service in their undergraduate dissertations. Each year we give awards to the three best dissertations from the academic year. Winners receive a prize of £300 and publicity about their work. The deadline for this year is midday on 20 June 2024. We will launch the award for 2024-25 in October.