Policy research officer jobs in belfast

The Role

This is a key role acting as a delivery partner on our projects, working on streams of community work across the Midlands, and within the staff team. 

Responsibilities

• Projects and Workstreams: Overseeing and ensuring outstanding delivery on multiple community projects through Flood Action Groups and Multi-Agency Meetings. Support and manage data collection that meets the aims of each project.
• Community Engagement: Engage and empower flooded and at-risk communities, supporting and representing them and pushing for the best outcomes.  Being ambitious on their behalf and advocating for change.
• Report Writing: Ensure reports are on time and are to depth and quality required.
• Staff Training: Support staff and training manager to ensure comprehensive and appropriate training takes place to ensure continuous professional development. 
• Team Management: Line manage staff, fostering a collaborative and productive environment. Modelling behaviours and driving forward team development.
• Stakeholder Relationships: Manage and develop key stakeholder relationships, ensuring strong partnerships and leading on communications.
• Political and Fundraising Support: Provide data, case studies, and research to support political influencing and fundraising activities. Contribute to and attend policy, political and strategic meetings.  Support fundraising activities through providing data and information. 
• Income: Identify future income opportunities, sharing information and building relationships for new projects or new income streams with Senior Management Team.  
• Support Senior Management Team proactive role to support to deliver NFF objectives.

Day-to-Day Activities

· You will manage and support Flood Engagement Officers to deliver their projects and work streams and managing development pathways for team members.

• Liaise and develop relationships with stakeholders to ensure smooth operational and community engagement activities.
• Support Senior Management Team to build income streams and develop new activity. Working to develop, support and deliver NFF strategy
• Providing information and case studies for communications and advocacy work

· You will be acting as the main contact for projects and agreed activities.

Skills & Knowledge

• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Listening: Outstanding listening skills to understand community needs.
• Stakeholder Management: Expertise in partnership working and managing stakeholders.
• Empathy: Ability to empathise with flooded individuals and communities.
• Organisation: Highly organised, flexible, and capable of senior leadership.
• Line and Team Management: Experience in managing teams and projects.
• Collaboration: Team player with a solution-focused mindset.
• Experience: Project delivery and support

How This Role Contributes to Our Strategy

• Community Support: Empowering and supporting communities.
• Partnerships: Developing strong relationships with partner organisations.
• Income Generation: Supporting income streams via projects and opportunities.
• Collaboration: Fostering a collaborative approach within the organisation.

About us

The National Flood Forum (NFF) is the only independent national charity dedicated to supporting and representing people at risk of flooding.  Established in 2002 by those affected by flooding, we passionately put people at the heart of flood risk management. Our goal is to empower individuals and communities to recover from flooding and get the best possible outcomes. We put people first.  We act as an honest, trustworthy and independent broker on behalf of flooded people. 

We work across four key areas:

• Providing information via our helpline and website
• Recovery Services in flooded areas
• Flood Action Groups
• Policy and Advocacy

With over 300 Flood Action Groups across England and Wales and handling more than 1000 calls annually through our helpline, NFF plays a crucial role in supporting and representing flood-affected and at-risk communities. We collaborate closely with flood risk management agencies, local authorities, and government bodies. We also aspire to a collaborative, supportive, and solution-focused environment for our staff.

Closing Date – Sunday 26th  2025 - Midnight

We especially welcome applications from people with flood sector experience, or who are flooded people themselves.

Join our team as a Ruby Developer helping us to support teachers, champion great teaching and raise the status of the profession by managing our membership platform and working with our Head of Data and Digital to transition to a Salesforce-centred management system.

Unfortunately we are unable to consider applicants based outside of the UK at this time.

For an audio description of this role and the full application pack, please visit our website.

Job Title: Ruby Developer

Reports To: Head of Data and Digital

Salary: up to £450 per day (inclusive of VAT if applicable)

Contract: Part-time, fixed-term until 31st August 2026 (potential of extension, depending on business need)

Hours: 7 hours per week

Based: Home-based. Our team work from across the country and we are happy to support remote working with the option to come into the London office (WC1) for occasional meetings

Start date: November 2025

Deadline and interview: Applications will close on Sunday 19th October 2025.
Competency-based interviews will be held on Monday 3rd November but we will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis so we may interview as soon as a suitable candidate is identified.

Application: Please apply here by uploading your CV and cover letter. Please use the guidance when writing your cover letter. We encourage you to apply promptly as we will be reviewing applications as they are received and may complete the process earlier than expected if an excellent candidate is identified at an early stage​.

The Organisation

The Chartered College of Teaching is a charity and the professional body for teachers. We are working to empower a knowledgeable and respected teaching profession through membership and accreditation.

We are dedicated to bridging the gap between practice and research and equipping teachers from the moment they enter the classroom with the knowledge and confidence to make the best decisions for their pupils.

Our activities mainly focus on four key areas:

• membership
• teacher CPD and accreditation
• research, policy and events
• online and print resources

Since opening membership in 2017, we have grown rapidly. In total our work reaches over 40,000 teachers and more than 3 million young people. In 2020 we published reports ‘Education in Times of Crisis’ around the impact of lockdown; in 2021 we won the Memcom award for ‘Best magazine for a Professional Association or Membership Organisation’; in 2024 we published the working paper ‘Teacher professionalism report’. To date over 600 teachers have been celebrated at Graduation ceremonies for our Chartered Teacher Status pathways. We are a growing and multi-skilled team of 30 people, supported by a Board with a significant track record of experience in a range of fields. Our business plan focuses on growing membership and Chartered Status, and providing meaningful professional learning opportunities for the teaching profession. This role will support our transition from our in-house management platform to Salesforce.

The Opportunity

Our Membership Platform supports the College membership functions to make a difference to the lives of over 3.6 million children taught by our members. It is used to track, manage and support our members to access their benefits.

We are recruiting a Ruby Developer within the Service Operations team to manage our membership platform and provide support to users who access it. During the contract you will:

• Monitor and resolve any issues arising with the platform.
• Manage and maintain the platform so it remains operational. 
• Work closely with the Head of Data and Digital to successfully transform and move the current data and services to a new platform built on Salesforce.
• Support membership operations with reporting, payment and refund requests.

This would be an ideal opportunity to work on a project to move our data and processes from a Ruby platform to Salesforce which will move the College’s processes forward to ensure a strong future. In this role you will: 

• have autonomy for maintaining and managing our existing membership platform;
• work collaboratively with many of the team across the business, supporting recruitment and retention of our members; and
• help to grow the professional membership organisation for the teaching profession and be  part of the team driving the organisation forward at an exciting time for the future of the College.

Platform Management and Maintenance

Most of the time, you will be managing the membership platform, fixing any bugs, keeping the server up to date, ensuring stability, and providing reports to various stakeholders within the College.  You will also provide support to the membership team with refund requests through GoCardless and Stripe.

Data and Process Transition

You will spend some of your time working with the Head of Data and Digital to move all relevant membership data and processes over to Salesforce.  This will entail preparing data in the correct format and providing support to move automated processes over to the new system.

About You

You do not need to have expertise in absolutely all areas, let us decide! We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment and encourage you to apply. We’re looking for someone that is motivated by our vision. Systems you would be using include Ruby, Heroku, Salesforce, Stripe (including the API) and GoCardless. 

Skills and experience

Essential

• Proficiency in Ruby and Ruby on Rails, with 3+ years of experience and with a total of 8+ years in professional software development
• Experience of using Postgres databases 
• Technical expertise in platform hosting, integration and upgrades
• Solid experience in CSS using SASS
• Experience of Git development CI

Desirable

• Experience of using Salesforce 
• Experience of Using the Stripe API and GoCardless API
• Experience of using Heroku to manage servers and deployment

As well as technical requirements, we are looking for people who: 

• have a systematic and analytical approach to problem-solving and technical troubleshooting;
• have the ability to work independently to troubleshoot and resolve problems;
• can work collaboratively with team members to bring about constructive changes and processes;
• ability to explain technical issues to non-technical people.

Why Us?

As an organisation, we care deeply about creating a working environment that supports our people to grow personally and professionally. These are reflected in our organisational values, which outline the distinctive working culture we are looking to create. In particular, these values are reflected in our commitment to: 

• Flexible working: responsive management, flexible hours, hybrid or fully remote working 
• Professional development, including formal and informal training and support 
• Transparency and ownership: we have an open culture that ensures all staff guide our strategic direction 

Diversity and inclusion at the Chartered College 

As a growing organisation, we are committed to:

• Becoming increasingly representative of the sector and geographies that we operate in
• Providing a positive experience of work as part of an inclusive culture led by our organisational values 
• Maintaining an annual EDI action plan - led by the internal team. 

What to expect from the recruitment process

• All applications are anonymised until the point of interview
• Line Managers trained in recognising bias
• We implement a standardised interview template and competencies matrix for a fair and transparent process
• All interviews are conducted via Zoom and the use of camera is optional.

If you require any adjustments in order to proceed with an application, including an audio version of this application pack, please make a request as per the application pack.

For more information about joining the Chartered College, please watch this short video from Dame Alison Peacock (CEO).

Your Personal Data

As part of the recruitment process, the Chartered College of Teaching collects and processes personal data relating to job applicants. The organisation is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.

Pre-employment checks

All conditional offers of employment are subject to:

• Two satisfactory references
• Proof of qualifications
• Eligibility to work in the UK.

We are an employer committed to the safeguarding of children and young people.

About the opportunity
As Head of Impact & Quality, you’ll lead the department that covers impact measurement, evaluation of our programmes, data management, curriculum development, training and quality of tutors and other initiatives that drive the evidence-based culture of Action Tutoring. With a strong understanding of the charity's theory of change, you’ll strengthen existing impact and quality processes and make strategic recommendations that develop these further. You’ll play a vital role in helping the Senior Management Team balance quality and quantity with sustainable business decisions. As well as leading the department, you’ll build external networks and represent the charity externally at relevant events, in person and online. As Action Tutoring begins planning for a new strategic cycle, you’ll design, evaluate and advise on the scale up of pilots in new ways of achieving our mission.

Closing date: Monday, 27th October 2025 at 9am
Interviews:Monday, 3 and Tuesday, 4 November 2025.  There may be a second round of interviews.
Start date: Ideally Monday, 1st December 2025
Contract and hours: Permanent. Full time. We offer flexible hours with 9.30-4 as core hours. A full working week is 37.5 hours.  We are open to 0.8 or 0.9 FTE for the right candidate.
Place of work:This role can be remote, with occasional travel required. Our London office address is: 8-10, Fivefields, Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0DH

Duties and responsibilities
 
People and Cultural Leadership 

• You’ll manage the workload distribution across the Impact & Quality department functions and teams, ensuring that projects are delivered according to strategic priorities. 
• You’ll line-manage a small team of managers who have responsibilities for curriculum, training, quality, insights and data management activities across the department.

 
Strategic and Senior Management 

• You’ll contribute to Senior Management Team discussions and decisions, representing the impact and quality functions, ensuring all decisions consider the implications on our evidence base, protecting the drivers of impact and maintaining our reputation as a sector-leading impact organisation.

Impact and quality oversight

• Leadership and oversight to ensure continued smooth implementation of a Randomised Control Trial lasting the first 6-9 months of this role. 
• You’ll be accountable for the development and implementation of the Impact Strategy of the organisation.

A full list of duties and responsibilities can be found in the job description attached to the BreatheHR advert. 

Person specification
 
Qualifications criteria: 

• The right to work in the UK.
•  University degree or equivalent experience in a relevant field of quantitative or social research. 

We are looking for some of the following attributes, though you might be more experienced in some areas than others:

• Excellent project management and project sponsor skills and experience, able to juggle multiple complex projects that are cross-organisational and manage external stakeholders. 
• Able to manage other experts and get the best from them drawing from an interdisciplinary approach to your work.
• Enjoys leading a team, supporting development of manager skills and capabilities. 
• Understands how a theory of change drives the development of delivery and is able to apply this to new modes of operations. 
• Strong logical reasoning, able to break processes into logical steps and understands how to maintain excellent data management practices. 
• A confident user of databases able to utilise the data it holds to generate insights for the SMT. Champion good data governance in collaboration with the Data Manager. 
• Experience of Salesforce CRM would be desirable but not essential. 
• Very familiar with the principles of evaluation and how to design evaluations to produce meaningful and reliable insights. This includes qualitative and quantitative activities. 
• Experience of working with external partners to evaluate work. Experience of developing pilots or start-up scale organisations would be desirable but is not essential. 
• Strong numerical skills, able to conduct diagnostic and predictive analysis of quantitative data sets. 
• Strong written communication and research skills, able to produce clear and jargon-free reports and summaries that synthesise qualitative trends. 
• Strong change management skills and experience, ensuring innovations are launched and embedded successfully. 
• Able to plan at a strategic level, factoring in external environment trends, financial limitations and scalable solutions. 
• In addition, the job holder is expected to substantially demonstrate the four competencies in our competencies framework at the ‘Head of ‘Level. 

You will be likely be more successful in this role if you have: 

• Experience working in the charity sector. 

Head of Income Generation and Marketing

• FTE £37- £42k dependant on experience.

• 35 hours a week (flexible for right candidate).

• Home based with travel for events and meetings.

The PDA Society is looking to recruit its first ever Head of role and we believe the right person could be transformative for our organisation. We are a small charity that makes a big impact – and we are excited to recruit someone who is hands on, pragmatic and experienced in raising income onto our team.

We are looking for a goal oriented, entrepreneurial individual who can help us maximise our fundraised and earned income through effective relationships and online communications. Over the next three years, we must significantly expand our free services and support offers for the people who most need them – and this role will be entrusted with ensuring we can afford to do that.

You will be part of a fast moving, high performing team who are determined to make a difference. This is a small organisation where senior team members do as well as plan. So while you’ll be setting direction and leading strategy, you’ll also be rolling your sleeves up and delivering directly alongside colleagues. You’ll be supported by a small communications team and a small budget to commission trust applications, and you’ll hold responsibility for maintaining trust funder relationships and ensuring reporting is timely and accurate.

If you have provable experience in growing income in a small charity or training organisation, are excited by growth, and want to make a difference to some of the most underserved disabled people in the UK this could be the job for you.