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This organisation is scheduling interviews as applications come in. They're ready to hire as soon as they find the right person. Don't miss your opportunity, apply now!
Thank you for your interest in joining the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), the UK’s leading professional body for health visiting.
This is a rare and exciting opportunity to join a growing, forward-looking organisation at a pivotal time. With a strong and expanding membership, iHV is working to strengthen the health visiting workforce and shape the future of child and family health across the UK.
As Policy Manager, you will play a key role in influencing national policy across priority areas including early years, prevention, public health, child protection and workforce. Your work will directly support iHV’s mission to improve outcomes and reduce inequalities for babies, children, families and communities and spread excellence in health visiting.
Working closely with our clinical team, members and partners, you will develop evidence-based policy positions and help ensure frontline expertise informs decision-making at the highest levels.
You will be joining a collaborative, passionate team in a fast-paced environment where no two days are the same – and where your work will make a real and lasting difference. For full information, please view our recruitment pack.
Key responsibilities:
- Lead the co-development of evidence-based policy positions with iHV’s clinical team, members and partners.
- Monitor policy developments and identify opportunities to influence change.
- Produce high-quality briefings, consultation responses and reports.
- Build relationships with stakeholders across government, charities and the health sector.
- Gather, synthesise and apply frontline insight to inform policy development – including the production of iHV’s high-profile ‘State of Health Visiting’ survey and report.
- Work closely with the Systems and Digital Manager, applying digital and data expertise to leverage digital tools and emerging technologies (including AI) to strengthen evidence-gathering, inform policy development, and improve organisational effectiveness.
- Support delivery of policy elements of iHV projects and organisational priorities.
- Represent iHV at meetings and contribute to sector discussions.
About you:
We are looking for the following essential skills and experience:
- Strong understanding of UK policy-making processes and child and family health/ early years policy – ideally informed by experience working within or closely with government or public sector organisations.
- Exceptional writing skills, with a proven ability to produce authoritative, high impact briefings, reports and policy documents that are clear, persuasive and tailored to diverse audiences.
- Highly developed analytical skills, with the ability to interpret complex information and evidence from multiple sources and translate this into clear, practical and actionable policy recommendations.
- Ability to collate, synthesise and critically assess diverse sources of insight, including frontline practitioner perspectives, quantitative and qualitative data, to inform robust policy development.
- Experience developing or contributing to evidence-based policy outputs (e.g. briefings, reports, consultation responses).
- Strong interpersonal and relationship-building skills, with the ability to work effectively and collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders and partners.
- Strong organisational and project management skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities, coordinate inputs and deliver work to deadlines.
- Confident verbal communication skills, with the ability to contribute effectively to meetings, events and external discussions, presenting complex ideas clearly.
Registered Charity 
21 - 50
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.
Thank you!
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
