Senior Research Manager – Housing, Work & Welfare, Health & Wellbeing

About you

This is a role for someone who enjoys the pace of agency research and is keen to apply their skills and develop their knowledge of social research on a range of projects with a variety of colleagues and clients.

You must have experience delivering mixed-method projects, both large and small scale and can show that you’ve worked at a similar level or handled a challenging workload that demonstrates you’re ready for the next stage in your career.

You should be someone with integrity, who communicates well and has a calm and constructive approach. You’ll understand commercial implications, have some experience of managing others and be able to manage several projects concurrently, work under pressure and reacting positively as requirements change.

The role would suit someone who is looking for more balance in their research strategy skills, but you must be able to demonstrate qualitative and quantitative experience, you may also have some evaluation experience, certainly a solid foundation and a desire to develop that understanding as we grow our expertise in this area.

We value fresh ideas on how to continue delivering to the highest quality. This is an opportunity to join a business that values input from all its staff and as a SRM you’ll apply your skills and build on the success of IFF.

About the role

About the opportunity

This is an exciting opportunity for a Senior Research Manager to join our team who specialise in working on a variety of social research projects in the UK, spanning a range of sectors including work and benefits, healthcare and wellbeing and housing and homelessness. We work with clients across central and local government as well as the third-sector to inform and evaluate the outcome of policies across the UK, generating meaningful insight and change.

As a Senior Research Manager (SRM) you’ll take the lead role on a number of high-profile studies, working on large scale surveys for government clients. You’ll work with and learn from our Associate Directors on other complex projects and you’ll be managing a team of Research Executives and Senior Research Executives, overseeing timescales and budgets, as well as leading on research outputs and client liaison, offering valuable advice to clients at various stages of the project.

Working alongside our Directors you’ll attend new business pitches and work with the senior team to develop and build on success within your sectors as well as developing your career and expertise.

As an SRM at IFF part of your role will be to collaborate with our L&D Director and other members of the research team to help design and eventually deliver training to the wider research team.

Responsibilities

• Lead the efficient running of multiple projects through effective planning prioritisation and communication.
• Have overall responsibility for designing and delivering research outputs, and analysis specifications.
• Produce insightful, in-depth and reports to a publishable standard.
• Produce creative and impactful presentations and deliver these to clients.
• Supervise and delegate to project teams confidently, clearly and effectively.
• Review SRE and RE outputs to ensure accuracy and to feedback improvements.
• Be the first point of contact for the client, proactively ensuring that clients are kept up to date and their needs are met.
• Work positively and flexibly within project teams, to get the best out of everyone.
• Identify skill gaps and coordinate required training for team members, liaising with L&D director to identify training needs and delivery solutions.