Jobs
Prospect Research Officer
Contract type: Permanent
Full time: 34.5 hours, we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours
Location: Hybrid between home and our London office (typically 1 day per week in office)
Salary range: £37,000 - £40,000
Are you a naturally curious researcher who loves turning insight into opportunity? Do you have a talent for writing high‑quality briefs and building strong, collaborative relationships?
We’re looking for a Prospect Research Officer who can help unlock transformative income to support people living with cancer.
About us
At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions.
Our new organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.
About the role
This is a pivotal role within our newly established Prospect Development and Insight function, giving you the opportunity to shape how we identify, research, and prioritise the high‑value prospects who can make transformational gifts to Macmillan.
You will be responsible for feeding high‑quality insight directly to fundraisers, supporting them to grow pipelines, prioritise approaches, and unlock opportunities across corporate partnerships, philanthropy, and trusts. You’ll use a wide range of research techniques and tools to identify prospects, evaluate their potential, support risk management through due diligence, and provide concise, high‑impact briefings for fundraisers and senior leaders.
Key responsibilities:
- Identify and qualify high‑value prospects using press scanning, wealth screening, network mapping, and research tools.
- Produce clear and concise prospect profiles, briefings and event research for fundraisers and senior stakeholders.
- Conduct due diligence on prospects and donors, assessing risks and escalating where appropriate.
- Work collaboratively with fundraisers to support pipeline development, prioritisation and movement of prospects.
- Provide market insight and trend analysis to help shape fundraising strategy and highlight new opportunities.
- Ensure all research activity complies with GDPR, the Data Protection Act, and internal policies.
About you
The successful candidate will bring:
- Excellent written communication skills, with the ability to summarise complex information clearly and concisely.
- Strong interpersonal skills and a collaborative working style.
- Excellent IT, database, research, analytical and organisational skills, including the ability to manipulate data to extract insights.
- Good awareness and understanding of the current corporate and philanthropy fundraising landscape.
- An enquiring mind, with the ability to challenge conventional thinking and draw out fresh perspectives on opportunities for donor development.
The following skills are nice-to-have but can be developed in‑role:
- Experience in prospect research, including identifying and prioritising prospects, network mapping, due diligence and developing gift capacity ratings.
- Experience using relational databases, ideally Raiser’s Edge.
In return, we offer a range of benefits including:
- 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days
- Pension matched up to 7.5%
- 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications
- Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am-4pm
- Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more
Recruitment process
Application deadline: 23:59 on Sunday 15th March
Interviews: Virtual Interviews will be held on the week commencing 23rd March (exact dates TBC)
To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed.
So we can support you to be your best during the application or interview process, please contact Macmillan TA Team for advice and reasonable adjustments.
We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.
At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer.


The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Research Grants Manager
Contract type: Fixed Term Contract (24 months)
Full time: 34.5 hours, we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours
Location: Hybrid between home and our London office (expected to be in the office at least quarterly). Additional travel required to events, conferences and workshops in London and nationally (approximately once per month).
Salary range: £62,500 - £68,500
Are you an experienced research funding professional who thrives on building programmes from the ground up? Do you want to shape a brand‑new Research Institute to improve the lives of people living with cancer?
We are looking for a Research Grants Manager to play a central role in establishing a new Research Institute to deliver world-leading, actionable research. The Institute will build Macmillan’s position as a national leader in applied cancer research, focusing on unmet needs, service improvement, inequalities, patient experience, and the wider non-clinical impact of cancer. This is an exciting opportunity to join us at a pivotal moment and help build a research programme with real‑world impact.
About us
At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions.
Our new organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.
About the role
As Research Grants Manager, you will establish and manage Macmillan’s research funding activities. You’ll help develop our research strategy, build a programme of grant funding, and ensure robust, equitable and transparent processes across the full research funding cycle.
You will work closely with senior clinical leaders, academic partners and research funders to establish Macmillan’s identity within the UK cancer research ecosystem and deliver high‑quality, strategically aligned research grants.
Key responsibilities:
- Develop and deliver a research strategy and priority themes aligned with Macmillan’s strategy, in collaboration with the Chief Medical Officer and Research & Health Data Lead.
- Establish Macmillan’s research funding programme to enable the award of high quality, strategically aligned research grants to build national research capacity centred on people living with cancer.
- Design and implement application, peer review and award processes across the research funding cycle.
- Lead the planning, logistics and documentation for all research funding calls.
- Convene and facilitate expert review panels, including lived experience representatives.
- Oversee the management of the research grants portfolio, ensuring accurate records, reporting, auditing and impact monitoring.
- Build and maintain relationships with academic institutions, research funders and charities.
- Manage and develop a small team responsible for overseeing the administration of awards.
About you
The successful candidate will bring:
- An advanced degree in a relevant discipline (e.g., health policy or health services research, public health, social science, implementation science) or equivalent professional experience.
- Experience of establishing and managing research funding programmes, including application, peer review and post‑award processes within a research funder, charity or equivalent.
- Experience of convening and facilitating expert panels, including lived experience representatives.
- Experience in managing and developing a small team, fostering a collaborative and high‑performing culture
- Strong understanding of research governance, ethics, compliance and impact assessment frameworks.
- Knowledge of the UK research funding landscape and cancer research ecosystem.
- Excellent project management, analytical and problem‑solving skills.
- Ability to communicate complex information clearly to a range of audiences.
In return, we offer a range of benefits including:
- 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days
- Pension matched up to 7.5%
- 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications
- Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am-4pm
- Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more
Recruitment process
Application deadline: 23:59 on Thursday 12th March
1st stage interview dates: 23rd and 24th March
2nd stage interview date: 2nd April
To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed.
So that we can support you to be at your best during the application or interview process, please contact Macmillan TA Team for advice and reasonable adjustments.
At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer.


The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.