Policy and evidence manager jobs

Do you want to help shape public debate, influence policy and communicate the value of homecare to Parliament and the wider public?

We are looking for a driven, curious, and politically aware External Affairs and Policy Specialist to help us communicate our policy work externally and strengthen the voice of homecare providers. You will turn policy insight, member experience and evidence into clear, persuasive communications for Parliament, the media, stakeholders and members

As a small, influential membership body, we offer breadth, visibility and responsibility. This role will suit someone who enjoys working hands-on in a small team, where priorities can move quickly and individual contribution is highly visible. We invest in our people, encourage professional development and give you real responsibility and exposure from day one. Your work will help shape national conversations and support a sector that matters.

What you will do

Parliamentary engagement

· Support day to day parliamentary monitoring and identify opportunities to influence debates, questions and policy development

· Draft high-quality briefings, parliamentary questions, and stakeholder communications

- Build and maintain relationships with MPs, Peers, and parliamentary staff

· Support delivery of our parliamentary engagement activity, including events and party conferences

Member communication

· Draft clear, timely and engaging communications for members, including briefings, updates and campaigns

· Work directly with members, including through focus groups, to capture insight, case studies and evidence

· Ensure member voice sits at the centre of our external messaging

· Translate complex policy and political developments into clear, practical and accessible information for members and external audiences 

Wider external affairs

·Monitor media coverage and support proactive and reactive media activity

· Contribute to social media and wider communications output

· Support campaigns, publications, events and stakeholder engagement

· Support team coordination, reporting and continuous improvement

About you

You are bright, motivated and organised, with a strong interest in politics, policy and communications. You enjoy writing, relationship-building and working at pace. You can understand complex issues, ask good questions and turn evidence into clear, compelling messages for different audiences.

You will bring:

·Strong written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to translate complex policy issues for different audiences

·Experience in public affairs, policy communications, media, communications or campaigning, or a closely related field

·An understanding of UK parliamentary processes, political engagement and the wider policy environment

· Confidence gathering insight from stakeholders, members or service users, including through meetings, interviews or focus groups

·Confidence using social media to inform, engage and influence

·Strong planning skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities

·An interest in social care, health or public services, or a desire to build expertise in this area

Please note that we are shortlisting applications as they come in. 

The Trust is recruiting a creative and committed Research and Policy Officer to join our team. Reporting to one of the team’s Research and Policy Managers, the successful candidate will play a significant role in developing and preparing the Trust’s research and policy outputs, working across the core areas of the Sutton Trust’s work (early years, schools, apprenticeships, higher education and access to the workplace). This will include helping to produce original, data rich and policy relevant research reports, along with contributing to other Trust research projects. They will also support the policy and advocacy work of the Trust, including performing background research on topics relevant to educational inequality and social mobility as required.

Main duties

• To contribute, with colleagues, to several data-rich research reports accessible to practitioners and policy makers, over the course of the year, as agreed with the Research, Communications and Policy leadership team

• To support the Sutton Trust's programme of research and policy work, including:

  • Providing staff with background research, analysis and data on relevant topics

  • Producing literature reviews

  • Supporting research funding bids

  • Providing administrative support

• Working with Communications colleagues to develop messaging and content for disseminating and publicising reports

• Supporting advocacy work, as required, with MPs' staff, civil servants, special advisers and other policy makers

• Other duties as necessary from time to time

Person Specification

Essential

• Excellent analytical skills and understanding of research methods, primarily quantitative research, as well as literature/evidence reviews. This should include significant experience of using data analysis software such as SPSS/Stata/R/Python or equivalent

• A qualification in a social science or other numerate discipline, including statistics, mathematics, economics, computer science, data science or similar discipline in the social or natural sciences at undergraduate level, or comparable experience

• Two years' experience working in research in a professional or academic environment (e.g., PhD, post-doc)

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

• High degree of initiative and the ability to take responsibility for projects

• Personable, flexible and discreet; able to fit into a busy, small team in a fast-paced policy environment

• Sympathetic to the aims of the Trust and its mission to address educational disadvantage

• Eligible to work in the UK (see here for information about right to work)

Desirable

• Experience of conducting research using adminstrative datasets (e.g., National Pupil Database) or longitudinal datasets (e.g., Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset, Understanding Society, Next Steps)

• Knowledge of one or more of our priority policy areas (early years, schools, apprenticeships, higher education and access to the workplace), and the wider education policy environment in England

• Strong understanding of government and the public policy environment

• Experience working within or an understanding of the not-for-profit sector

• Experience in education (for example, as a teacher or in another front-line educational role), education policy or a closely related field

• A postgraduate qualification in a numerate discipline (see above)

Terms of Appointment

• Contract: Full-time, permanent

• Salary: £32,000 - £38,000 per annum

• Working location: Minimum of 2 office days per week

• Office location: The Sutton Trust, 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP. Our home working policy gives staff the option to work from home for up to 60% of the time, with approval from their line manager.

• Hours: The standard working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday and may also be required to attend events/meetings outside of their normal working hours during weekday evenings and occasionally at weekends

• A DBS check may be required

Interviews

Applications should reach us by 5pm, Friday 24th July, with first round interviews held over Zoom on Monday 10th August, and second round interviews held at our London offices on Monday 17th August.

Safeguarding statement

The Sutton Trust believes that a child, young person or vulnerable adult should never experience abuse of any kind. We all have a responsibility to promote the welfare of all children and young people and to keep them safe. Therefore all posts undergo a safer recruitment process, including but not limited to, disclosure of criminal records where necessary and eligibility to work in the UK. We have procedures in place to promote safeguarding and a safe culture at the Trust.

Contextual recruitment

The Trust is committed to ensuring equality of opportunity and that all applicants receive equal consideration for employment. We strongly encourage individuals from all backgrounds, including those underrepresented at present at the Trust, to apply for this role. As such we particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities, Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ and from different socio-economic and educational backgrounds. We are committed to being an inclusive and welcoming place to work and know that greater diversity will lead to even greater results for the young people we support.

We are committed to providing reasonable adjustments for disabled candidates throughout our recruitment process and during employment.

We also operate contextual recruitment at the Sutton Trust. Our application process gives you the option to include information about your background, such as whether you were eligible for free school meals, whether your parents went to university, or whether you attended a state school. For more examples and information on contextual recruitment, please see our website.

Job Description and Person Specification

Job title Participation Manager

Hours 35 hours per week. We are opening to discussing flexible arrangements – please highlight any requests when applying.

Salary Between £37,000 - £43,750. Placement within the band will depend on skills and experience, with the upper end reflecting significant, directly relevant expertise.

Length of contract  12 months

Location Hybrid work between home and our Vauxhall office. Please read more about our approach to hybrid working in the relevant section below.

Reports to Director of Evidence and Improvement

National Voices

Making what matters to people matter in health and care

National Voices is the leading coalition of health and social care charities in England. We have more than 200 members covering a diverse range of health conditions and communities, connecting us with the experiences of millions of people. We work together to strengthen the voice of people: patients, service users, carers, their families, and the voluntary organisations that work for them.

Our Vision: People shaping their health and care.

Our Mission: We advocate for more inclusive and person centred health and care, shaped by the people who use and need it the most.

We do this by:

· Understanding and advocating for what matters to people especially those living with health conditions and groups who experience inequalities.

· Finding common cause across communities and conditions by working with member charities and those they support.

· Connecting and convening charities, decision makers and citizens to work together to change health and care for good.

The Role

At National Voices, our aim is to make what matters to people matter in health and care. Too often, we see decisions made about the design of health and care services which don’t consider the people who use and need those services – especially those with long term conditions and from groups experiencing inequality. While the intentions of decision makers are usually good, they can unwittingly develop services which are difficult to access, stressful to experience and which don’t enable people to live life to its full potential.

We believe that if health and care leaders were better supported to meaningfully involve people living with health conditions, disability, inequality and their carers in decisions about how services are delivered then our NHS and social care services would be more equitable, and person centred.

At National Voices, we believe that this can best be achieved by connecting health and care leaders in health and care to key groups including:

· Leaders within the patient participation movement, who can support and advise health and care leaders on how to share power with people and communities using coaching and quality improvement techniques, and by acting as a critical friend.

· Leaders from voluntary sector organisations and community groups, who can bring insight into the needs, experiences and priorities of the communities they serve. They can identify opportunities to improve how services are designed and delivered, and help connect decision-makers with communities whose voices are often underrepresented.

· People with lived experience of inequality, particular conditions or services, who bring unique expertise based on their direct experience of care. They can provide timely insight into the impact of policies and services, helping decision-makers stay tuned to current needs, experiences and priorities, rather than relying on historical evidence or assumptions.

We are looking for a Participation Manager who can lead on the design, development and delivery of funded projects that generate insight, support improvement, and enable meaningful participation in health and care decision making. This will include end-to-end responsibility for project design, delivery, reporting and impact.

Projects may include designing and delivering activity such as workshops, coordinating lived experience advisory groups, coordinating coalitions of VCSE organisations, undertaking qualitative research, facilitation and engagement work. The postholder will need sufficient breadth of experience across these areas to confidently design and steer programmes, while drawing on colleagues, partners and associates for specialist input where needed.

You will be responsible for overall programme management - ensuring projects are well planned, appropriately resourced, and delivered on time, within budget and to a high standard. This includes managing risks, reporting requirements and funder relationships.

Projects may also include co-ordinating the delivery of Voices for Improvement coaching relationships and workshops on meaningful participation. We are open to a Participation Manager who has skills and experience around coaching theory and practice, however, we can also bring in external Associates with this subject matter expertise where needed to guide and supervise the coaching elements of the process.

You will also play an active role in identifying and developing new funding and partnership opportunities, contributing to the growth of National Voices’ portfolio of externally funded work.

Finally, where needed, you will also work collaboratively with another Participation Manager who leads National Voices’ Lived Experience Partner programme, membership scheme and partnership programme. You will contribute to these areas where required, particularly where they intersect with funded projects, but they will not be the primary focus of this role.

Responsibilities

Lead the development and delivery of funded participation projects

Lead the end-to-end design, delivery and management of funded programmes and projects that generate insight, support improvement and drive meaningful participation in health and care, including:

· Lead on shaping, securing and delivering funded projects from proposal stage through to completion, ensuring clear outcomes and impact

· Design and oversee programmes that may include research, engagement and participatory activity, such as qualitative and quantitative research, stakeholder engagement and participation work

· Convene and coordinate a range of delivery approaches including advisory groups, workshops, events, VCSE engagement and system partner collaboration

· Ensure delivery is well planned, resourced and managed, including oversight of budgets, timelines, risks and funder reporting

· Draw on colleagues, partners and associates for specialist expertise where needed, while holding overall responsibility for programme design and coherence

· Translate insights and findings into clear, accessible outputs in collaboration with policy and communications colleagues to support influence and impact

· Develop and shape new funding opportunities and proposals to grow the organisation’s portfolio of externally funded work

Deliver coaching and engagement programmes

Manage the delivery of structured coaching and engagement programmes, including National Voices’ Voices for Improvement model, where included within funded projects:

• Oversee delivery of coaching and engagement activity including matching, coordination and participant support
• Ensure coaching relationships between people with lived experience and system leaders are well supported and of high quality
• Contribute to the design and facilitation of associated engagement or learning sessions where required
• Work with associates or external specialists to bring in coaching or quality improvement expertise where needed
• Capture learning, feedback and impact from coaching programmes and contribute to funder reporting, case studies and evaluation outputs

Contribute to wider participation programmes

Work collaboratively with another Participation Manager to support integration with National Voices’ wider participation infrastructure:

· Contribute where relevant to the Lived Experience Partner programme, membership scheme and partnership programme

· Support the involvement of lived experience partners, members and partners in funded projects and engagement activity

· Ensure alignment across programmes and share learning between project delivery and participation infrastructure

General

• Provide line management to one Project Officer within the team, if needed - quality assuring outputs, holding regular 1-2-1s as well as setting annual objectives and completing appraisals.
• Provide matrix management for other National Voices colleagues as and when required.
• Work in sync with other managers across National Voices, contributing to a joined-up, supportive team culture.
• Deputise for the Director of Evidence and Improvement, or other senior colleagues, when required.

· Follow organisational processes to measure, monitor and communicate the impact of our work

· Support good project, financial and data management

Person Specification

Values, attitudes and behaviours

· Passionate about National Voices’ mission and the meaningful involvement of people with lived experience

· Strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and reducing health inequalities

· Proactive, flexible, and responsive, with a willingness to work in complexity

· Comfortable working both collaboratively and independently, taking ownership of delivery

· Calm under pressure and able to manage multiple priorities and tight deadlines without compromising quality

· Confident engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including constructively challenging where appropriate

· Entrepreneurial - able to spot opportunities for growth, collaboration, and impact

· Energised by variety, able to work across diverse themes while identifying connections and opportunities

Skills and abilities

· Strong programme and/or project management skills, with demonstrable experience of leading complex, multi-stakeholder funded programmes from design through to delivery and completion

· Ability to shape ideas into deliverable programmes, including contributing to funding bids, designing delivery approaches, and translating proposals into practical delivery plans

· Strong analytical and synthesis skills, with the ability to translate complex qualitative and quantitative insight into clear, structured outputs that inform decision making and drive action

· Excellent organisational skills, including planning, prioritisation, risk management and delivery of high-quality work to deadlines

· Confident stakeholder and relationship management skills, with experience working across partners, funders, subcontractors, commissioned work and multi-organisation collaborations

· Strong facilitation and engagement skills, including designing and delivering workshops, events and participatory sessions for diverse audiences

· Strong communication skills, including the ability to produce clear, accessible written outputs and presentations

· Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to work collaboratively, support others in delivery, and contribute to shared outcomes

Experience, knowledge and understanding

· Demonstrable experience of leading or delivering participation work with people with lived experience, ideally addressing inequality

· Strong experience of designing and delivering insight generation projects (qualitative and/or quantitative) that have led to real-world impact and improvement

· Experience of working meaningfully with people experiencing inequalities in safe and inclusive ways

· Experience of managing projects, budgets, and multiple stakeholders, working with a high degree of autonomy

· Experience of managing partnerships, funders, or commissioned work, including contributing to income generation

· Experience of facilitating workshops, events, or participatory sessions

· Understanding of the health and care landscape

· Good understanding of the participation landscape, with the ability to act as a credible contributor in the field (desirable)

· Experience of managing or contributing to coalitions or networks of VCSE or membership organisations (desirable)

· Understanding of mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) approaches to evidence generation and analysis (desirable)

· Coaching and/or quality improvement qualifications (desirable)

· Lived experience of disability, caring responsibilities and/or inequality (desirable)

Our approach to hybrid working

We recognise the importance of coming together regularly, in-person, as a team, so we can share learnings and spend social time with each other. We also recognise that people need flexibility, and that homeworking enables focused work and can fit well in people’s lives.

We ask all staff to take part in pre-arranged team meetings which take place every six weeks in our office space. We also might ask you to meet in-person with members of your team from time to time, or to be available for face-to- face meetings with clients and partners where this enhances the work.

We assume that this would usually not amount to more than one day per fortnight for people who work full time. We are happy to discuss how this sits in your life. This can be agreed by your line manager.

Please note that our offices are fully wheelchair accessible and that we are committed to making our workplace fully inclusive.

Application guidance

Please submit a CV and cover letter to apply. We are also recruiting a permanent Participation Manager role at the same time. If you would like your application to be for both roles, please make this clear in your cover letter.

You're welcome to use AI tools to help you prepare your application. However, we encourage you to make sure your application reflects your own voice and experiences. We often see similar AI-generated writing styles, which can make applications less distinctive. As a charity, we're particularly interested in hearing why our mission matters to you and how your values align with ours.

Please specify any access or other requirements of which we need to be aware for the online interview.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Thursday 30th July.  

The interviews will take place in early August on Microsoft Teams. Details of an interview task and interview questions will be emailed to you in advance.

We are committed to diversifying our team in order to broaden the insight and experiences we can draw on, and to do our work more credibly. In particular, we would welcome applications from older people, disabled people and people who have experienced socioeconomic inequality. Our offices are fully accessible and we are a Disability Confident and an LGBT+ friendly employer.

Hybrid / London (50% office attendance)

£44,340 + Benefits

We are recruiting for two Senior Policy Officers. One is a permanent role, and one is a 12-month, fixed-term contract. The Senior Policy Officers will be line managed by a Policy Manager or Senior Policy Manager.

As a key member of the Academy’s Policy Team, the Senior Policy Officer will play an important role at a critical moment for the organisation. This role will help the Policy team to plan and deliver a new set of priorities for 2026/27.

Relevant priorities for this role include, but are not limited to:

• Improving health outcomes in the UK and internationally.
• Mobilising the UK health research system to turn discovery into practice.
• Making the UK the best place in the world to have a career in medical sciences.

Within these overarching priorities, there are some distinct policy programmes the incoming Senior Policy Officer is likely to work on, which could include:

• Maximising the impact of medical sciences in prevention and early detection.
• Transforming the generation and application of clinical evidence to speed up translation from discovery to patient impact, ensuring equitable inclusion of underserved groups.
• Making the UK a global leader in responsible, effective and equitable AI and data use across the biomedical sciences.

Requirements

Essential:

• Good understanding of the UK health research and medical sciences policy landscape, and/or other related areas.
• Experience in scoping, planning and delivering multiple policy projects in parallel, to achieve organisational objectives.
• Ability to develop knowledge of complex policy topics at pace and identify opportunities for impact within these topics.
• Strong analytical skills and experience of collating evidence from multiple sources. 
• Ability to build and maintain effective relationships with key internal and external contacts, including senior, high-profile individuals.
• Ability to harness the benefits of working in a diverse organisation that is rapidly growing and changing, including across different departments and sub-teams. 
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
• Able to run impactful policy events, meetings, and engagement activities.
• Commitment to inclusive, accessible and evidence‑based policy work.
• Strong attention to detail. 
• Good IT, literacy and numeracy skills. 

Desirable:

• Line management experience.
• Ability to travel around the UK.

Benefits

We provide our staff with a comprehensive benefits package outlined as follows:

• Generous pension scheme with flexible contributions – we contribute between 8% - 13% of your gross salary (with employee contributions of 3% - 8%).
• Life assurance at three times your salary.
• Hybrid and agile working. 50% office attendance.
• 26 days annual leave, plus Christmas closure days and bank holidays.
• Buying and selling leave.
• Family-friendly policies including enhanced maternity and paternity leave (subject to a qualifying period).
• Complimentary subscriptions to Headspace and Classpass to support your physical and mental wellbeing.
• Support through tailored learning and development.
• A range of enhanced benefits become available once you’ve completed your probation period.

For more information and to apply, please visit our careers page via the apply button.

Closing date: 5.00pm on 22nd July 2026.

Interview date: w/c 27th July 2026.

Research and Policy Manager - Welfare

Date posted: 6 July 2026

Salary: £67,752 per annum with excellent benefits

Contract type: Permanent

Hours per week: 37.5 hours per week (part time over 30 hours considered). All staff are required to work in person for a minimum of two days per week, in line with our hybrid working policy. The post-holder may be required to undertake some work outside normal working hours.

About the Health Foundation

Health is our most precious asset. Good health enables us to live happy, fulfilling lives, fuels our prosperity and helps build a stronger society. Yet good health remains out of reach for too many people in the UK, and health and care services are struggling to provide access to timely, high-quality care.

The Health Foundation is an independent charitable organisation with a mission to build a healthier UK. We work to achieve this by generating high-quality research and analysis; developing practical solutions to the biggest problems in health and health services; engaging, convening and building coalitions to build understanding, inform debate and drive action; and developing the long-term capability needed to transform health and care.

Our values

We expect everyone who works with us to be committed to our values and to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation. Our values are impact, evidence, integrity, and collaboration. You can read more about them in our five-year strategy. We also expect everyone to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation and to help deliver our EDI Strategy.

About the role

This role will lead our agenda around the role of welfare to support the working age population to maintain good health and support people with long term health conditions or disability when they are unable to work or participate.  The Commission for Healthier Working Lives identified a number of issues with welfare support which effectively disincentivise people from accessing and staying in work and the purpose of this role is to make the case for change and point to potential solutions.

The post holder will have a strong understanding of the current welfare agenda, and particularly what this means for people with long term health conditions and disability.  Working with the Senior Fellow, you will identify the opportunities to shape better policy, providing decision makers with the evidence and clear recommendations.  As well as conducting your own analysis, you will help commission policy research projects from internal and external experts and provide oversight for these projects.

Developing your own profile as an expert, you will also lead or support drafting of external outputs, speak at external events and grow and maintain external stakeholder relationships.  The role provides a real opportunity to have a voice to influence the future shape of health and welfare policies and practice.

To find out more about the role and what we are looking for, please read the job description.

How to apply

Our priority is to find the right individual for each opportunity. We are dedicated to building an inclusive workplace that values diversity and invite you to find out more.

If you would like to apply, please submit your CV and answer the application questions below. Please try to limit your response to each question to no more than 300 words.

• What interests you most about this role and how do you think your experience would help The Health Foundation to influence change in the welfare system?
• Tell us about a time when you built relationships with a range of stakeholders to achieve a shared objective. How did you establish credibility, manage different priorities or perspectives and what was the outcome?

Our commitment to equality, inclusion and diversity

We are committed to an inclusive hiring process, where every candidate has the chance to showcase their unique skills and experience in an accessible and supported environment, to ensure that we can make the best appointment for each opportunity on merit. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage those from underrepresented groups in this field to apply to us. We have identified three key areas to improving diversity. Our aim is to achieve a more balanced representation across our organisation, with a particular focus on increasing the number of women in leadership, enhancing the representation of people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds and welcoming more people with disabilities. As part of this commitment, we strongly encourage applications from these groups.

Apply to join our team and let's work towards building a more diverse and inclusive workplace together. If you require any support through this process, please contact us. Help us work together to make the recruitment process and potential future employment more accessible and enjoyable for you.

Closing date: Sunday 26 July 2026 23:59

Interview dates: Week commencing 10th August 2026

Participation Manager

Job Description and Person Specification

Job title Participation Manager

Hours 35 hours per week. We are opening to discussing flexible arrangements – please highlight any requests when applying.

Salary Between £37,000 - £43,750. Placement within the band will depend on skills and experience, with the upper end reflecting significant, directly relevant expertise.

Length of contract  Permanent

Location Hybrid work between home and our Vauxhall office. Please read more about our approach to hybrid working in the relevant section below.

Reports to Director of Evidence and Improvement

National Voices

Making what matters to people matter in health and care

National Voices is the leading coalition of health and social care charities in England. We have more than 200 members covering a diverse range of health conditions and communities, connecting us with the experiences of millions of people. We work together to strengthen the voice of people: patients, service users, carers, their families, and the voluntary organisations that work for them.

Our Vision: People shaping their health and care.

Our Mission: We advocate for more inclusive and person centred health and care, shaped by the people who use and need it the most.

We do this by:

· Understanding and advocating for what matters to people especially those living with health conditions and groups who experience inequalities.

· Finding common cause across communities and conditions by working with member charities and those they support.

· Connecting and convening charities, decision makers and citizens to work together to change health and care for good.

The Role

At National Voices, our aim is to make what matters to people matter in health and care. Too often, we see decisions made about the design of health and care services which don’t consider the people who use and need those services – especially those with long term conditions and from groups experiencing inequality. While the intentions of decision makers are usually good, they can unwittingly develop services which are difficult to access, stressful to experience and which don’t enable people to live life to its full potential.

We believe that if health and care leaders were better supported to meaningfully involve people living with health conditions, disability, inequality and their carers in decisions about how services are delivered then our NHS and social care services would be more equitable, and person centred.

At National Voices, we believe that this can best be achieved by connecting health and care leaders in health and care to key groups including:

· Leaders within the patient participation movement, who can support and advise health and care leaders on how to share power with people and communities using coaching and quality improvement techniques, and by acting as a critical friend.

· Leaders from voluntary sector organisations and community groups, who can bring insight into the needs, experiences and priorities of the communities they serve. They can identify opportunities to improve how services are designed and delivered, and help connect decision-makers with communities whose voices are often underrepresented.

· People with lived experience of inequality, particular conditions or services, who bring unique expertise based on their direct experience of care. They can provide timely insight into the impact of policies and services, helping decision-makers stay tuned to current needs, experiences and priorities, rather than relying on historical evidence or assumptions.

We are looking for a Participation Manager who can manage our lived experience programme, our membership scheme and our partnership scheme. This role will ensure that where there are opportunities for people and communities to shape health and care, National Voices has the right relationships, processes and support systems in place to connect decision makers with our Lived Experience Partners, members and people with lived experience.

The Participation Manager will:

· Lead National Voices’ Lived Experience Partner programme by strengthening engagement and participation, investing in members’ knowledge, skills and confidence, and ensuring lived experience insights shape our work.

· Lead National Voices’ membership scheme by driving engagement, retention and inclusion, strengthening member relationships, embedding member insights across the organisation, and overseeing satisfaction, records and knowledge management.

· Lead National Voices’ scheme by managing partner engagement, retention and recruitment, overseeing delivery of the partnership offer, and ensuring partners receive high-quality advice, insight, connections and access to relevant people and communities.

· Develop and deliver funded projects, supporting income generation and securing resources to advance National Voices’ strategic priorities.

The Participation Manager will work in collaboration with:

· Policy and communications colleagues who have worked hard to ensure when we capture insights from people and communities, we have established relationships and ways of communicating with key players in health and care so that insights collected lead to impact.

· Research and insight colleagues who have expertise around qualitative research methods and inclusive engagement, who regularly deliver high quality qualitative research on a range of topics and on a range of topics – often focussed on surfacing the experiences of those least well served by health and care services.

· Colleagues across the organisation who lead and contribute to member and partner benefits, including policy forums, networking opportunities, events and other engagement activities.

The Participation Manager will play a central role in ensuring National Voices’ lives its values around meaningful participation so that in both our internal and external work people and communities are engaged in a timely and inclusive way, using methods that ensure their input is heard and acted upon, and their knowledge, priorities, and contributions are recognised and fairly valued.

Responsibilities

Lead our Lived Experience Partner programme

National Voices’ Lived Experience Partners are a group of 15 people who have significant experience of navigating the health and care system, expertise in meaningful participation and who have received training and support to enable constructive and strategic input into improving health and care. The majority of Lived Experience Partners have also accessed learning around coaching and are regularly matched into coaching relationships with senior leaders in health and care. Your role will be to:

· Deliver meetings where our Lived Experience Partners have opportunities for peer learning and opportunities to influence live pieces of work.

· Gather insights from our Lived Experience Partners on how they are experiencing working with National Voices and how they want to grow.

· Ensure our Lived Experience Partners are supported to grow in their knowledge, skills and confidence to influence decision making – through 1:1 catch ups, training and more.

· Lead our work matching Lived Experience Partners in high quality coaching relationships with senior leaders in health and care, ensuring that coaching duos have the support they need to gain value from the relationship.

· Diversify and grow our network of Lived Experience Partners as needed.

Lead our membership programme

National Voices’ members are a group of over 200 not-for-profit organisations who serve a diverse range of communities, including: condition-specific charities - such as Diabetes UK, Allergy UK and Lupus UK; equality charities - such as the Caribbean and African Health Network, Groundswell and National Ugly Mugs; other health, care and community based organisations – such as Compassion in Dying, Pain UK and Patient Information Forum. Our members include some of the biggest and smallest charities in England. They connect us with the experience of millions of people. Your role will be to:

· Direct the activities of our membership working group, taking lead responsibility for member engagement, stewardship, renewals, support and retention.

· Deepen the relationship with our membership, ensuring that we have the structures in place to understand their ambitions, insights, practice and ideas.

· Collaborate with colleagues across the team to ensure our members’ insights become more central to everything that we do.

· Diversify and grow our membership.

· Oversee our annual survey on member satisfaction.

· Oversee improvements in records and knowledge management.

Lead our partnership programme

National Voices’ Partners are a small group of impactful organisations who want to join National Voices in achieving our mission of making what matters to people matter in health and care, including the Nuffield Trust, the Kings Fund, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and others. Your role will be to:

· Take lead responsibility for engagement, stewardship, renewals, support and retention of organisations in our partnership scheme.

· Oversee the delivery of the partnership offer – co-ordinating requests which come from partners and collaborating with colleagues, members and Lived Experience Partners to ensure partners receive high-quality advice, insight, connections and access to relevant people and communities.

Develop and deliver funded projects

· Identify opportunities for collaboration, partnership and income generation that support our strategic priorities – leading on selected funding bids and supporting others as required.

· Develop ideas into clear, fundable proposals and secured projects. This may include designing and delivering activity such as workshops, coordinating advisory or lived experience groups, undertaking qualitative research, facilitation and engagement work.

· Plan confidently and realistically across lived experience workstreams, taking accountability for delivery, spend, and completion of agreed outcomes.

· Manage projects, programmes and budgets in partnership with colleagues and stakeholders, putting in place effective systems to ensure timely, high-quality delivery and reporting.

General

• Provide line management one Project Officer within the team, quality assuring outputs, holding regular 1-2-1s as well as setting annual objectives and completing appraisals.
• Provide matrix management for other National Voices colleagues as and when required.
• Work in sync with other managers across National Voices, contributing to a joined-up, supportive team culture.
• Deputise for the Director of Evidence and Improvement, or other senior colleagues, when required.

· Follow organisational processes to measure, monitor and communicate the impact of our work

· Support good project, financial and data management

Person Specification

Values, attitudes and behaviours

· Passionate about National Voices’ mission and the meaningful involvement of people with lived experience

· Strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and reducing health inequalities

· Proactive, flexible, and responsive, with a willingness to work in complexity

· Comfortable working both collaboratively and independently, taking ownership of delivery

· Calm under pressure and able to manage multiple priorities and tight deadlines without compromising quality

· Confident engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including constructively challenging where appropriate

· Entrepreneurial - able to spot opportunities for growth, collaboration, and impact

· Energised by variety, able to work across diverse themes while identifying connections and opportunities

Skills and abilities

· Strong project and/or programme management skills, with demonstrable experience delivering complex, multi-stakeholder work

· Excellent organisational skills, including the ability to prioritise, plan, manage risk, and maintain high-quality delivery

· Strong communication skills, including the ability to translate complex insight and evidence into clear, accessible outputs

· Confident relationship and stakeholder management skills, including working with partners, subcontractors, and commissioned work

· Excellent facilitation and presentation skills, including delivering workshops and events to diverse audiences

Experience, knowledge and understanding

· Demonstrable experience of leading or delivering participation work with people with lived experience, ideally addressing inequality

· Strong experience of designing and delivering insight generation projects (qualitative and/or quantitative) that have led to real-world impact and improvement

· Experience of working meaningfully with people experiencing inequalities in safe and inclusive ways

· Experience of managing projects, budgets, and multiple stakeholders, working with a high degree of autonomy

· Experience of managing partnerships, funders, or commissioned work, including contributing to income generation

· Experience of facilitating workshops, events, or participatory sessions

· Understanding of the health and care landscape

· Good understanding of the participation landscape, with the ability to act as a credible contributor in the field (desirable)

· Experience of managing or contributing to coalitions or networks of VCSE or membership organisations (desirable)

· Understanding of mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) approaches to evidence generation and analysis (desirable)

· Coaching and/or quality improvement qualifications (desirable)

· Lived experience of disability, caring responsibilities and/or inequality (desirable)

Our approach to hybrid working

We recognise the importance of coming together regularly, in-person, as a team, so we can share learnings and spend social time with each other. We also recognise that people need flexibility, and that homeworking enables focused work and can fit well in people’s lives.

We ask all staff to take part in pre-arranged team meetings which take place every six weeks in our office space. We also might ask you to meet in-person with members of your team from time to time, or to be available for face-to- face meetings with clients and partners where this enhances the work.

We assume that this would usually not amount to more than one day per fortnight for people who work full time. We are happy to discuss how this sits in your life. This can be agreed by your line manager.

Please note that our offices are fully wheelchair accessible and that we are committed to making our workplace fully inclusive.

Application guidance

Please submit a CV and cover letter to apply. We are also recruiting a 12 month fixed term Participation Manager role at the same time. If you would like your application to be for both roles, please make this clear when applying. 

Applications should be addressed to our Director Evidence and Improvement, Sarah Sweeney, and submitted through CharityJob.

You're welcome to use AI tools to help you prepare your application. However, we encourage you to make sure your application reflects your own voice and experiences. We often see similar AI-generated writing styles, which can make applications less distinctive. As a charity, we're particularly interested in hearing why our mission matters to you and how your values align with ours.

Please specify any access or other requirements of which we need to be aware for the online interview.

The deadline for applications is 5pm on Thursday 30th July.  

The interviews will take place in early August on Microsoft Teams. Details of an interview task and interview questions will be emailed to you in advance.

We are committed to diversifying our team in order to broaden the insight and experiences we can draw on, and to do our work more credibly. In particular, we would welcome applications from older people, disabled people and people who have experienced socioeconomic inequality. Our offices are fully accessible and we are a Disability Confident and an LGBT+ friendly employer.

We have a rare opportunity for an experienced policy professional to join as team as Policy Analyst.

In this exciting role you will lead the policy workstream for Head On, a major Wellcome Trust funded campaign bringing together 20 sector leading organisations to build political momentum for mental health reform. You will be a skilled policy analyst and writer, able to coordinate influencing opportunities with MPs, Ministers and No. 10 on the NHS 10 Year Plan and the new Mental Health Strategy. Experience in policy and public affairs, and knowledge of health or mental health policy, are essential.

Centre for Mental Health is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in all aspects of our work, to help create better mental health for all. We are taking active steps to become an antiracist organisation, and we value and support staff with lived experience of mental health challenges. We want the team shaping mental health policy to reflect the diversity of people whose lives that policy affects. We are happy to provide reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process for disabled applicants. We particularly encourage applications from people of colour and trans people, who are often underrepresented in policy roles.

We are also able to offer this role as a potential secondment opportunity. 

Job Description: Facilities Manager

Reports to: Head of Services

Location: Woking, Surrey

Hours of Work: Part time, 22.5hrs per week

Salary: £21,060 22.5 hours, depending on experience

About Us:

At York Road Project, we are dedicated to transforming the lives of individuals experiencing homelessness in Woking. We believe in harnessing the unique strengths and potential of each individual to create a pathway towards stability and independence.

The Role:

This is an exciting time to join the organisation, as we are planning the refurbishment of our flagship 10-bedroom supported accommodation service alongside ongoing development of our wider accommodation portfolio.

The Facilities Manager is responsible for ensuring the safe, compliant and effective operation of all facilities at York Road Project, which includes a 10-bedroom main site shelter and three additional properties comprising a further 14 beds. The role ensures all buildings are maintained to a high standard, remain fit for purpose, and meet statutory and regulatory requirements.

Key Responsibilities:

Facilities Management

• The Facilities Manager monitors the delivery of maintenance activity across all sites, ensuring issues are escalated where standards, timescales or compliance requirements are not met.
• The role ensures all accommodation and premises are maintained to a high standard, remain fit for purpose, and operate safely and efficiently.
• The Facilities Manager reviews and improves facilities processes to enhance operational efficiency and ensure consistent delivery across all sites.

Health and Safety & Compliance

• Oversee Health and Safety compliance across all properties and service.
• This includes the development, review and maintenance of risk assessments for all properties and relevant work activities, ensuring they are suitable and sufficient, regularly reviewed, updated following changes or incidents, and effectively implemented.
• The role also ensures statutory inspections, fire risk assessments, fire safety compliance, emergency preparedness, HSE requirements, and DSE compliance for home working staff are in place and maintained.
• Responsible for ensuring compliance systems and documentation are maintained to an audit-ready standard.
• The role supports internal and external audits, including annual health and safety and fire risk assessment audits, ensuring evidence and corrective actions are completed.

Governance & Reporting

• As part of the role you will attend the charity’s Health and Safety Sub-Committee, providing updates on H&S, risks, compliance, audits, and improvement actions.
• The role contributes to audit processes, monitoring compliance status and ensuring follow-up actions are completed and embedded across the services.

Budgets & Operational Reporting

• Manage facilities-related budgets, reporting on spend, risks, compliance status and planned maintenance priorities.
• Develop a maintenance schedule for all properties.

Professional Standards & Ways of Working

• Maintain accurate and timely records of inspections, compliance checks, maintenance activity and statutory requirements
• Ensure all property and compliance documentation is audit-ready and consistently maintained
•  Work collaboratively with the administrative team to ensure effective coordination of maintenance, suppliers and compliance systems

Knowledge and Skills:

Essential

• Experience in facilities, maintenance, property management and compliance roles.
• Experience of using facilities and compliance management software.
• Strong knowledge of UK health, safety and environmental regulations.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
• Approaches challenges or issues with a problem-solving mindset, looking for effective solutions rather than focusing on the problem itself.
• Strong organisational abilities, able to prioritise and to skillfully plan and manage time.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and Salesforce.
• Proficiency in conducting risk assessments and creating action plans based on findings.

Desirable

• NEBOSH, IOSH, or equivalent health and safety qualification.
• Experience of managing budgets and supplier & contractor relationships.
• An understanding of sustainability and energy efficiency initiatives.
• Experience overseeing small refurbishment or capital projects.
• Knowledge of safeguarding practices.

Personal Attributes:

• Ability to manage competing priorities under pressure.
• Resilient and confident working in complex environments.
• Positive attitude, maintains a positive attitude even in challenging situations.
• Future-orientated, has a forward-thinking perspective, anticipates future needs or issues and plans accordingly.
• Team worker, demonstrates a commitment to strong collaborative work by actively engaging with colleagues, volunteers, external partners and to be accountable for the outcome.
• Ownership - willingness to take ownership of tasks and projects and to be accountable for the outcomes.
• Aligned with the values and mission of York Road Project.

Benefits:

• Holiday entitlement of 25 days per annum (pro-rata for 0.6 FTE) plus bank holidays (pro-rata) 
• Pension Scheme.
• Birthday day off.
• Medicash healthcare plan,
• Flexible working and hybrid working opportunities. 

Date posted: Monday 6 July 2026

Salary: £94,592 per annum with excellent benefits

Contract type: Permanent, full time or part time

Hours per week: 37.5 hours per week. All staff are required to work in person for a minimum of two days per week, in line with our hybrid working policy. The post-holder may be required to undertake some work outside normal working hours.

About the Health Foundation

Health is our most precious asset. Good health enables us to live happy, fulfilling lives, fuels our prosperity and helps build a stronger society. Yet good health remains out of reach for too many people in the UK, and health and care services are struggling to provide access to timely, high-quality care.

The Health Foundation is an independent charitable organisation with a mission to build a healthier UK. We work to achieve this by generating high quality research and analysis; developing practical solutions to the biggest problems in health and health services; engaging, convening and building coalitions to build understanding, inform debate and drive action; and developing the long-term capability needed to transform health and care.

Our values

We expect everyone who works with us to be committed to our values and to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation. Our values are impact, evidence, integrity, and collaboration. You can read more about them in our five-year strategy. We also expect everyone to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation and to help deliver our EDI Strategy.

About the role

This role is one of three key Deputy Directors in the Health and Care Policy team. The team focuses on shaping the future of the health and care system in the UK to ensure the best care for all, by supporting more evidence-informed policy and decision-making.

You will work alongside the Director of Policy and Research and other senior staff to oversee and manage our large portfolio of work on health and care policy. This will include leading high-quality research and analysis and using evidence to inform policy and decision-making – including through direct engagement with policymakers, events and convening. You will also be directly responsible for overseeing our thematic programme of work on health system reform and neighbourhood health, working with staff in the Health and Care Policy team and other teams across the Foundation.

Key responsibilities include:

• Working with the Director of Policy and Research and other senior members of staff to oversee and lead the health and care policy team’s work
• Lead the development and delivery of high quality research and analysis, and communicate our messages to external audiences
• Lead the delivery of our thematic programme of work on health system reform and neighbourhood health
• Build and maintain strong networks with relevant health and social care policy stakeholders
• Be a visible and credible senior leader for our work on health and care policy, setting high standards for the quality, rigour, and impact of our work, and supporting others to meet them

How to apply

Our priority is to find the right individual for each opportunity. We are dedicated to building an inclusive workplace that values diversity and invite you to find out more.

If you would like to apply, please submit your CV, and a supporting statement that answers the following application questions:

• Why are you well suited to this role? What leadership skills and experience would you bring to the Senior Leadership Team of the Health Foundation? (max. 300 words)
• What skills and experience do you have in generating and using high quality research and analysis to influence and inform national policy? What experience do you have in leading teams to do this effectively? (max. 400 words)
• Based on your experience, what are some of the key ingredients for effectively using research and analysis to influence policy decisions? (max. 400 words)

Our commitment to equality, inclusion and diversity

We are committed to an inclusive hiring process, where every candidate has the chance to showcase their unique skills and experience in an accessible and supported environment, to ensure that we can make the best appointment for each opportunity on merit.

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and encourage those from underrepresented groups in this field to apply to us.

We have identified three key areas to improving diversity. Our aim to achieve a more balanced representation across our organisation, with a particular focus on increasing the number of women in leadership, enhancing the representation of people from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds and welcoming more people with disabilities. As part of this commitment, we strongly encourage applications from these groups.

Apply to join our team and let's work towards building a more diverse and inclusive workplace together.

If you require any support through this process, please contact us. Help us work together to make the recruitment process and potential future employment more accessible and enjoyable for you.
 

Closing date: Friday 24th July 2026

Interview date: Week commencing 17th August 2026

Martingale Foundation exists to fund and support the next generation of talented researchers. We believe that family income should not be a barrier to the pursuit of excellence, and our mission is to enable and nurture talented individuals from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to thrive within world-leading postgraduate research.

Martingale’s flagship programme is the Martingale Postgraduate Scholarship, which supports students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue and excel in postgraduate degrees, by providing:

• A fully-funded Living Wage Scholarship to pursue a one-year masters degree or a four-year PhD.
• All tuition fees and research expenses, including a tax-free stipend for living costs.
• Tailored support to apply for Martingale courses at our partner universities.
• Access to Martingale programmes, including leadership training and connections with top academic and industry professionals.
• Membership of a pioneering community of talented researchers.

About Purposeful Ventures

Martingale Foundation is incubated by Purposeful Ventures who provide operational and strategic support. The Policy Manager will be employed by Purposeful Ventures.

Our vision is of a fairer society where all young people thrive. Purposeful Ventures partners with social entrepreneurs and philanthropists to improve the education and well-being of young people from their earliest years.

We define and diagnose the issues affecting children and young people, analyse evidence and explore the most promising solutions. We then select, accelerate and, where we find a gap, incubate organisations which tackle those issues. We offer more than just funding to our charitable organisations. Our expertise, operational experience and networks enable us to deliver tailored, hands-on support with a relentless commitment to system change.

About the role

In the four years since Martingale launched, we have now supported over 200 Scholars to undertake postgraduate degrees across our thirteen partner universities.

As Martingale grows, we are building our policy and advocacy function to shape the future of postgraduate access, affordability and outcomes. We are seeking a rigorous, proactive and collaborative Policy Manager to drive the monitoring, insight and evaluation that underpin our influence, and to support the development and implementation of our policy positions and stakeholder engagement.

Reporting to the Head of Communications and External Engagement, you will lead Martingale’s policy tracking, political intelligence, evidence generation, and evaluation and learning. You will turn a fast-moving external landscape into clear, actionable insight, and produce the evidence, analysis and draft materials that enable the Head and CEO to position Martingale credibly with funders, universities, the sector and government.

This is a hands-on, delivery-focused role with significant autonomy. You will own workstreams end-to-end, build systems and processes where they do not yet exist, and influence more senior colleagues and stakeholders. You will sit at the centre of a landmark research and policy programme and help deliver a campaign to implement the recommendations from Martingale’s major HESA-based research partnership, making the case that talent, not background, should determine who progresses to and thrives in postgraduate study.

Please download the full job description on the Purposeful Ventures website.

Key Responsibilities:

You will lead on monitoring and insight, and on evaluation and learning. You will support the Head of Communications and External Engagement on policy position development; consultations, briefings and submissions; and policy and stakeholder engagement and convening.

Monitoring and Insight

• Lead Martingale’s policy tracking and horizon scanning across legislative and regulatory developments, research funding policy, labour market and skills policy, and higher education sector developments relevant to postgraduate access, affordability and outcomes.
• Gather and synthesise political insights to anticipate risks and opportunities, briefing the Head and CEO on what is changing, why it matters to Martingale, and how we should respond.
• Lead the generation of evidence - coordinating, analysing and interpreting data and research (including Martingale’s HESA-based research and partner analysis) to underpin our policy positions and external narrative.
• Build and maintain trackers, briefings and knowledge systems that make insights from across government and higher education accessible, timely and actionable across the team.

Evaluation and Learning

• Lead the monitoring and evaluation of Martingale’s policy and advocacy activity, defining what success looks like and setting clear measures to track progress against our objectives.
• Establish and run learning cycles that capture what is and is not working, feeding insight back into strategy, planning and delivery.
• Own evaluation tools and reporting, ensuring activity is measured against clear objectives and that impact is demonstrable to colleagues, the Board and funders.
• Coordinate with the Programmes Team to leverage lessons and insights from our engagement with scholars to shape our policy work.

Policy Position Development

• Support the Head in developing Martingale’s policy positions for both government and higher education stakeholders, translating evidence into clear, credible and mission-aligned policy asks.
• Draft and refine policy content, ensuring positions are intellectually rigorous, well-evidenced and consistent with Martingale’s voice and values.

Consultations, Briefings and Submissions

• Draft consultation responses, briefings, submissions and other policy materials for the Head and CEO to own and represent in external forums.
• Coordinate inputs across the team and with partners to deliver high-quality, accurate and timely products to deadline.
• Help ensure Martingale’s policy activity complies with charity law and Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity, escalating issues as appropriate.

Policy and Stakeholder Engagement and Convening

• Manage the planning and delivery of Martingale’s stakeholder engagement, including roundtables and convenings.
• Maintain the stakeholder engagement register, tracking relationships, mapping sector and geographic coverage, and identifying gaps and opportunities.
• Build and steward day-to-day relationships with stakeholders across government, academia, research councils, funders, learned societies and partner organisations to advocate for our mission, escalating to the Head and CEO where appropriate.

Ways of working

• Work closely with the Head of Communications and External Engagement, providing the monitoring, insight, evidence, drafting and evaluation that underpin Martingale’s external positioning and influence.
• Collaborate across the communications, partnerships and programme teams, and with delivery and research partners, creating shared understanding of priorities, timelines and dependencies.
• Manage resources and any project budgets responsibly and use evidence and learning to improve practice over time.
• Carry out any other duties as are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the role as requested by the line manager.

Key Requirements:

Experience and skills

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in policy, public affairs, research or analysis, ideally within a mission-driven organisation.
• Strong understanding of the UK education, social mobility and/or research funding landscape, including the roles of bodies and organisations such as UKRI, Universities UK, Department for Education and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
• Excellent research and analytical skills, with the ability to synthesise complex policy and evidence into clear, accessible insight.
• Outstanding written communication, with the ability to produce high-quality briefings, consultation responses and policy materials for senior and external audiences.
• The ability to distil complex topics into compelling arguments for a range of audiences.
• Proven ability to own and deliver multiple workstreams to deadline, creating plans, systems and processes where they do not yet exist.
• Experience monitoring and evaluating activity and using evidence and learning to improve practice.
• Ability to build and manage relationships with external stakeholders, and to brief and influence more senior colleagues.
• Advanced IT proficiency: spreadsheets, word processing, CRM or databases such as Beacon, email, web-based applications.

Desirable

• Experience of horizon scanning, political monitoring or intelligence-gathering.
• Familiarity with higher education or research organisations, and/or with postgraduate, doctoral or research-focused study.
• Understanding of industrial strategy, labour market and skills policy
• Familiarity with Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity for charities.
• Experience delivering policy or research work in a startup or scale-up environment.

Personal Characteristics

• Excellent interpersonal skills: able to build rapport and trusting relationships, and to work co-operatively in a multidisciplinary setting.
• A commitment to Martingale’s mission to support postgraduate students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Comfortable working in a rapidly growing and changing organisation with a degree of ambiguity – confident to create processes and ways forward where they might not yet exist.
• Curious, rigorous and detail-oriented, with sound judgement about what matters and why.
• Resourceful, able to act on initiative, hardworking, and systematic.

Title:  Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager

Salary:  From £45,000 - £55,000 per annum 

Contract:  Permanent

Hours:  37.5 per week (Monday to Friday) 

Holiday:     25 days per year plus bank holidays 

Location:  Home based with regular travel within / to London and across the UK

Probationary Period:  3 months

Reports to:  Head of Department 

Benefits:  An additional 3 days holiday between Christmas and New Year, Flexitime policy, 5% pension contribution

Title and salary to be commensurate with experience.

We are River Action

We are a small and agile campaigning organisation on a mission to rescue UK rivers from a toxic cocktail of agricultural, sewage and industrial pollution and water shortages. We support community action, galvanise and mobilise public opinion, influence government policy, take legal actions and call out destructive industrial practices to incentivise changes that end river pollution and secure freshwater. 

We are building a talented team of positive disrupters and stakeholder mobilisers to deliver our strategy to urgently protect and restore our rivers for the benefit of communities, rivers and wildlife.

Britain’s rivers are our life support system and they are dying. We need urgent action to bring them back to life.

Who we are looking for

We are expanding our political influence by introducing this new position, which will work closely with our existing Policy and Advocacy Manager to bolster our strategic reach particularly in the areas of water scarcity, security and justice, sewage and chemical pollution, and water sector reform.

We are seeking a dynamic and self-motivated individual who shares our passion for protecting rivers and securing our nation’s water, food, health, jobs and economy to join our team to drive forward our policy and advocacy work. This role requires a strategic thinker with strong policy insights capable of blending analytical problem-solving with intelligent advocacy to drive meaningful change. This role requires someone to have excellent writing skills and the ability to draft complex policy documents as well as top line arguments for wider communication. 

The ideal person will bring a combination of expertise, energy and ideas to amplify our impact, holding decision-makers and polluters accountable with a professional and diplomatic approach. They will engage with influential people across the sector, government, industry and media. 

If you thrive in fast-paced environments and want to be at the forefront of environmental policy and advocacy across multiple campaigns, we’d love to hear from you.

What you’ll be doing

As a Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager, you  will lead the development and drafting of River Action’s overall policy strategy as well as leading on specific policy areas. You will play a leading role in shaping and advancing River Action’s political and policy influence, working closely with the Senior Management Team, Chief Executive and wider organisation to develop and execute an impactful policy and advocacy strategy.

River Action is the Co-Secretariat for the APPG on Water Pollution, offering our Policy and Advocacy Manager a unique opportunity to shape the policy direction for River Action and also to influence policy development across Parliament. 

You will also work closely with our public affairs agency who manage our daily Westminster activities. 

You will:

• Lead River Action’s development and delivery of our policy and advocacy strategy on sewage, industrial water pollution, and water scarcity 

• Collaborate with River Action’s team and external partners to ensure our collective work is underpinned by robust and forward-thinking policy analysis and evidence.

• Develop policy analysis to support campaign, communications and policy strategies, based on a strong evidence base and a sound understanding of the relevant legal and policy frameworks.

• Translate complex policy and evidence into concise documents with clear messages and compelling campaigns to engage political and policy stakeholders.

• Monitor and analyse political and policy developments, interpreting their implications and opportunities for River Action and its supporters.

• Generate analysis to enable participation in public consultation processes, including drafting high-quality and persuasive consultation responses and briefings for Westminster and Whitehall audiences.

• Increase our political influence with exciting policy interventions, ensuring River Action’s voice is heard at the highest levels of decision-making.

• Build and maintain relationships with key policymakers, civil servants, industry experts and partner organisations.

• Support grassroots community groups and third-sector partners in engaging with their local representatives for effective advocacy.

• Organise and attend key political meetings and events, including the Water Pollution APPG, stakeholder roundtables and parliamentary events.

• Manage strategic policy partnerships, including our relationship with Wildlife and Countryside Link and other third-sector organisations.

• Ensure River Action’s policy and advocacy efforts align with our creative campaigns, by making sure colleagues and spokespeople are well-briefed and communications content is well-informed to maximise reach and impact.

You will also:

• Actively engage in professional development and training.

• Adhere to health and safety policies while working in different locations.

• Maintain confidentiality in all areas of work at River Action.

• Demonstrate a strong commitment to an inclusive, equal and diverse workplace.

• Work collaboratively with colleagues across River Action to collectively deliver our mission while being true to our values. 

UK travel will be required and regular trips to London. Training and operational activities may require overnight stays away from home, in which case costs will be covered and standard River Action procedures will apply.

What you’ll bring

The position will suit a self-motivated, strategic and determined person. You will be an excellent communicator, with exceptional writing skills and comfortable representing River Action and engaging with diverse stakeholders in positions of responsibility. You will have a passion to protect and restore our waterways and to hold decision-makers and polluters to account.

Essential knowledge, skills and experience:

• Experience in a senior policy and advocacy role, ideally within the environmental sector and including experience of water policy. 

• Policy and/or legislative experience, with a good understanding of the workings of the UK government and Parliamentary procedure.

• A good understanding of the UK water industry, the key UK water-related policies and the issues that are impacting our rivers, land and wildlife.

• Knowledge of the challenge of water scarcity.

• Excellent communication and writing skills with close attention to detail and the ability to produce concise and persuasive briefings, reports and consultation responses.

• Strong interpersonal skills and a collaborative approach to working creatively and at a fast pace with colleagues, stakeholders and partners. 

• Excellent organisational skills, including the ability to proactively plan and prioritise work and to report your progress and impact.

• Ability to work flexible hours and travel as necessary.

• A good and supportive team player with a willingness to muck in as and when required.

Why join us?

• Be part of a mission-driven organisation working to restore and protect the UK’s rivers.

• Work at the heart of political and environmental change, influencing decision-makers at the highest levels.

• Work in an agile, supportive and happy work environment where your ideas and expertise will have real impact.

• Opportunities for professional development and growth within the organisation.

Diversity and inclusion

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for jobs unless they meet every single criteria. We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace. So if you like the look of this role but your past experience does not align perfectly with everything in the job description, we’d still love to hear from you. You may be just the right person for this role.

How to apply

To apply, please submit to jobs at riveractionuk dot com with the subject Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager’:

• your CV (2 pages), 

• a cover letter (2 pages) explaining why you want to work for River Action and how your skills and experience meet the requirements of the role, and 

• a written submission (2 pages) as described below. 

Only applications including all three documents will be accepted. Please provide your documents in pdf format. 

Written submission

Please prepare a 2 page policy briefing for Parliamentarians on the issue of water scarcity and water justice and how it affects UK rivers and our security.  Your briefing should be written in a clear, persuasive style suitable for a Parliamentary and government audience and:

• Identify causes of water scarcity and injustice.

• Provide a concise analysis of the impact on rivers, biodiversity and our economy.

• Summarise and assess gaps in relevant UK Government policies, legislation and plans.

• Propose two or three practical policy recommendations for decision-makers.

Application process

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until 5pm on Wednesday 15th July.

Should your application be selected during sift, the next stage will involve an initial 15-minute interview. You may then be invited to attend a second interview with a panel. 

Interviews will be held in the weeks commencing 19th July and 26th July via video conference. 

Please indicate in your covering letter or in a covering email your availability for interviews.

If you have any questions about the role or your application, please contact us on jobs at riveractionuk dot com.

About Us

Are you looking for a job where you can make a difference to a local community? Chinnor Village Centre aims to be the welcoming hub of the village and local area, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds by providing a place to meet and services aimed at ending social isolation. 

About The Role

The Centre Manager will oversee the day to day running of centre, making sure we have a safe and welcoming environment. Working with Trustees, you will play a key part in bringing about change at the Centre to ensure its future sustainability and place at the heart of the Chinnor and surrounding villages. This includes seeking out and securing funding opportunities to increase income and providing leadership to our small staff team. Volunteers are at the heart of everything we do and the Centre Manager will need to promote the Centre as a great place to volunteer. 

Key responsibilites:

• Ensuring appropriate policies and protocols are in place.
• Overseeing a programme of works for the refurbishment and updating of the Centre.
• Line manage our 7 staff.
• Produce financial reports and plans, working with our Treasurer and Bookkeeper.
• Identify and lead the application process for grants and funding.
• Provide governance and admin support to the Board of Trustees.

The post is offered at £35,000 to £38,000 fte per year (actual up to £30,400 for 30 hours per week). Other benefits include 25 days holiday per year pro rata and a workplace pension scheme. The postholder will need to be on site for the majority of time. 

The Centre Manager role is a varied one, with no day the same. If you enjoy working with people and are able to ensure the busines aspects of our charity run efficeintly then we would love to hear from you. 

Salary: £45000-£49000 p.a DOE

Hours: 37.5 hours per week

Reports to: Senior Insight Manager

Direct reports: There is potential for line management responsibility for an Insight Officer to support their development, oversee elements of their work, and help to ensure high standards of research quality and delivery.

Location: Harlow, Essex. Easily commutable from London Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale Station. We offer a free minibus service to/from Harlow Town Train Station as well as free parking and EV charging on site.

Extra Information: Open to conversation on hybrid, flexible and compressed working arrangements. The team works a minimum of two days a week from the office.

About the role:

At the Motability Foundation we fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose. We oversee the Motability Scheme and provide grants to help people use it, providing access to transport to hundreds of thousands of people a year. We award grants to other charities and organisations who provide different types of transport, or work towards making transport accessible. We also carry out ongoing research, in partnership with disabled people and key stakeholders in the industry, to inspire innovations that continue to champion accessible transport for all.

This role will support the Senior Insight Manager in delivering policy research and insight as part of the new insight function. This role sits at the intersection of research and policy, ensuring that evidence is not only generated, but interpreted and mobilised effectively to inform forward-looking organisational positioning.

What you will be doing:

As Policy Research Manager, you’ll play a central role in building and mobilising the evidence needed to influence policy and public debate on mobility, disability and welfare reform. Working closely with colleagues across Insight, Policy and Public Affairs, you’ll help to ensure that the Foundation has a robust, timely and compelling evidence base to support advocacy, engagement with decision-makers, and external partnerships.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Developing clear and persuasive evidence narratives that demonstrate the social value and impact of the Foundation’s work, drawing on research, evaluation findings and wider policy evidence
• Scoping, developing and oversight of rapid evidence reviews and insight summaries to inform policy positions, responses to consultations and support external engagement
• Delivering forward-looking policy analyses using futures and foresight approaches (including horizon scanning and trend synthesis), assessing potential implications for disabled people and organisational positioning.
• Acting as the lead for policy-relevant research on welfare reform and related priority areas, synthesising internal and external evidence to inform organisational responses
• Supporting coordination with Motability Operations on shared policy and research priorities
• Supporting relationships with external partners including Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs), think tanks and public research bodies, including representing the Foundation to contribute an evidence-informed perspective
• Supporting dissemination and engagement activity, including roundtables, briefings, thought pieces and events that help shape debate and explore innovative policy solutions
• Working collaboratively across the organisation to move our evidence and insight from reactive to proactive, strengthening our influence over time

Your experience:

You’re curious, motivated and motivated by public impact. You enjoy turning complex evidence into clear messages that resonate with different audiences, and you’re keen to see research used to influence real-world decisions. You understand what makes for good enough evidence to influence policy making.

You’re comfortable working across organisational boundaries and with external partners, and you bring energy, judgement and confidence to conversations about policy, evidence and social value.

You’re likely to thrive in this role if you:

• Enjoy synthesising research and data into compelling, accessible insight
• Are motivated by social purpose and improving outcomes for disabled people
• Have a strong interest in public policy
• Have a strong understanding of how evidence can be used to influence decision-making
• Are proactive, organised and able to respond quickly to emerging issues
• Are confident representing an organisation externally and contributing to policy discussions
• Like working collaboratively and building trusted relationships across teams and sectors

If you’re interested in applying and excited about working with us but are unsure if you have the right skills and experience, we'd still encourage you to apply.

Requirements

We recognise that candidates may come from a range of backgrounds. We’re particularly interested in people with strong potential who are keen to develop their skills in a purpose-driven environment.

Must haves:

• Experience conducting or coordinating research, evidence reviews or analysis in a policy, public affairs, research or related setting
• Familiarity with government policy-making processes, consultations and/or parliamentary engagement
• Ability to synthesise complex information into clear, concise written outputs
• Understanding of how research and evidence can be packaged and used effectively to inform or influence public policy
• Experience working with or alongside external organisations such as think tanks, charities, DPOs, academic or public research bodies
• Strong written communication skills and confidence contributing to external briefings, reports or events
• A relevant degree or postgraduate qualification in a social science, public policy or related discipline, or equivalent work experience

Nice to haves:

• Experience working on disability, welfare, transport or social policy issues
• Experience supporting advocacy or public affairs activity using evidence
• Experience designing or managing rapid evidence reviews or insight products
• A recognised professional research qualification such as the MRS Advanced Certificate, or equivalent professional research training.

Benefits

Who are we?

We are building a future where all disabled people have the transport options to make the journeys they choose.

We fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose. We oversee the Motability Scheme and provide grants to help people use it, providing access to transport to hundreds of thousands of people a year. We award grants to charities and organisations who provide different types of transport, or work towards making transport accessible. We also carry out ongoing research, in partnership with disabled people and key stakeholders in the industry, to inspire innovations that continue to champion accessible transport for all.

Why choose us?

We want working for the Motability Foundation to be the best career move you’ve ever made. When you join the Motability Foundation you will join a group of people who are supportive, innovative and motivated to improve the lives of our beneficiaries.

We value everyone’s unique qualities and celebrate having a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture where everyone feels safe to be their authentic selves. This is embedded into our values, Collaborative, Respectful and Evolving.

We bring our people together through our People Forum, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Forum, Social Squad and our Wellbeing Champions and our employee Spotlight Awards help us recognise the excellence and dedication of our staff.

We are proud to be recognised as Disability Confident Leader, have attained Platinum Level Award for Investors in People and are members of the Business Disability Forum.

A career with Motability Foundation can offer you so much more than earning potential, we pride ourselves in offering some fantastic benefits. Some of these include:

• 26 days annual leave, plus the option to buy/ sell up to five days.
• One wellbeing day for extra flexibility.
• Pension scheme - Up to 20%, including a 10% non-contributory contribution and matched contributions up to 5%.
• Life Assurance of four times your salary.
• Private healthcare through BUPA for you and your family, along with a Medicash Health Plan.
• Employee assistance programme: GP appointments, eye tests, flu vaccinations, sick pay and free gym and yoga sessions.
• Enhanced Parental Leave, including Adoption Pay.
• Free parking, EV charge points and a minibus service to/from the town centre and train station.
• Fresh fruit, breakfast snacks, and a Dress for Your Day dress code.
• Learning and development opportunities to help you grow.

Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, and we aim to be an employer of choice for candidates with disabilities.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we have committed to ensuring that disabled people and those with long term health conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential. We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to perform their best when interviewing and when working with us, so if you require any reasonable adjustments that would make you more comfortable, please let us know so that we can do our best to support you.

To help us create an inclusive workplace we are committed to offering to interview every disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria for the job. Some of our roles attract a high volume of applications and in some circumstances, we may need to limit the number of interviews offered to disabled and non-disabled candidates. re

Role purpose

To manage the programme’s policy activity and provide support and expertise to help ensure effective delivery of the programme’s strategy to influence policy change. Working closely with internal and external stakeholders, the role will plan and deliver activities to help ensure Trussell’s analysis and arguments are taken up and the organisation’s policy recommendations are reflected in decisions made by UK government, in line with the programme goals.

This role is part of Trussell’s Making Social Security Work programme, the goal of which is to ensure that social security and employment support are accessible, well-designed and sufficiently funded in order to prevent people experiencing hunger and hardship, and that the UK public view social security as an asset to society. This role is focused on the successful delivery of the overall programme outcomes, contributing to the fulfilment of our long term vision of a UK without the need for food banks.

Key responsibilities

Develop credible policy proposals
 
Plan and deliver policy development activities to achieve the goals of the Making Social Security Work programme. Create credible proposals, including embedding participatory approaches to ensure policy positions are rooted in the lived experience of individuals affected by poverty, to build a strong case for policymakers to implement asks.

Manage policy influencing activities

Plan and deliver policy influencing activities to strengthen Trussell’s ability to secure policy change. This includes briefings and presentations promoting the organisation’s policy positions to external stakeholders and audiences, ensuring alignment across programmes and all nations and regions of the UK. Ensure policy outputs are timely, high-quality and support engagement with key audiences, including UK government officials and Parliamentarians.

Coordinate reactive policy work

Ensure Trussell’s policy positions are included in real-time debates on key issues. Coordinate responses to reactive work on relevant policy issues, including policy consultations, activity in Parliament, in the media or in response to requests from food banks in the Trussell community so Trussell’s voice, evidence and analysis are included in key policy debates, raising the organisation’s profile and influence.

Build stakeholder relationships and networks 

Build collaborative relationships and networks with anti-poverty sector organisations and other external stakeholders to strengthen UK policy activity. Represent Trussell in key sector coalitions and share detailed policy analysis and recommendations with external stakeholders and audiences to raise the organisation’s profile and influence.

Person Specification

Core knowledge
Good knowledge of policy issues relevant to Trussell’s vision, including social security, disability and employment

Good understanding of the machinery of government and policy making in the UK at the national, regional and local levels and of effective policy development and influencing 

Good understanding of how to use evidence and analysis to develop, judge and advocate for policy solutions

Proficiency in MS Office (e.g. Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook) and project management processes 

Essential skills

Skills in developing policy solutions, ability to use different approaches and tailor solutions to organisational goals and external context.  

Good ability to make effective and appropriate use of evidence and analysis when developing and advocating for policy solutions, as well as identify gaps in evidence and make recommendations for filling them

Excellent communication skills, including written, presentations and speaking, ability to adapt to influence different audiences

Collaborative interpersonal skills, ability to build relationships and influence internal and external stakeholders.

Effective project management and ability to balance competing priorities, meet tight deadlines and maintain a constructive approach to challenges.

Role models inclusive behaviour and values, demonstrates commitment to the values of Trussell and empathy for people from disadvantaged, marginalised or socially excluded backgrounds.

Key experience

Track record of successfully delivering strategic policy influencing activity based on robust evidence from development to evaluation 

Experience of informing campaigns activity to mobilise support for policy change 

Experience line managing or task managing staff and contributing to team development 

Special Requirements 
None