Senior Lead, Research & Insights

• Research Scalability & AI enablement: Productise core research offers to support repeatable, sustainable delivery. Identify opportunities to improve quality and efficiency using automation where appropriate, and increase wellbeing for team
• Cross-Portfolio working: Deploy research capability into other projects to shape their delivery approaches (e.g. ACE Research and Applied Tech) and provide systems-level thinking for our customers
• Thought Leadership: Identify team insights and capability to position Plexal as a key player in mission-critical technology areas
• Research Partnerships: (Re) build partnerships with consultancy or academic channel partners
• Adoption: Research outputs demonstrably used in downstream delivery or client decisions

• Define and maintain the strategic direction for the capability, including its scope, value proposition, and alignment with organisational goals.
• Own and evolve the delivery methodology, tooling, and quality standards for the capability.
• Act as the internal champion for the capability, ensuring it is well understood and effectively leveraged across the business.

• Oversee the quality of the delivery of projects within the capability, ensuring they meet expectations.
• Provide delivery assurance and oversight, including risk management, resource planning, and stakeholder engagement.
• Support the mobilisation of new projects and ensure smooth transitions between sales and delivery.

• Set and uphold quality standards across all workstreams within the capability. 
• Monitor delivery performance and implement continuous improvement initiatives.
• Conduct regular reviews and retrospectives to identify lessons learned and embed best practices.

• Establish and maintain governance frameworks to ensure consistent, transparent, and accountable delivery practices.
• Track and report on portfolio performance, including KPIs, delivery health, risks, and dependencies.
• Provide regular updates to senior leadership and stakeholders, offering insights and recommendations for strategic decision-making.
• Ensure compliance with internal controls, audit requirements, and external standards where applicable.

• Line manage and mentor capability-aligned team members, supporting their development and progression.
• Identify skills gaps and lead targeted interventions to build capability maturity.
• Support onboarding and upskilling of new joiners within the capability.
• Ensure teams are appropriately resourced to ensure they can meet their development and growth objectives.

• Work closely with Directors, Account Leads, and other Capability Leads to ensure integrated delivery across portfolios.
• Represent the capability in internal forums and external engagements as needed.
• Identify opportunities for thought leadership and innovation within the capability domain.

• Proven qualitative and quantitative research skills e.g. end-to-end research design, research question/challenge scoping, interviews, surveys, market research, data analysis.
• Ability to define and scale research delivery methodologies, including setting quality frameworks and KPIs
• Familiarity with AI-enabled research tools and automations to enhance research efficiency, where appropriate.
• Synthesis of complex research into clear, engaging and accurate outputs suitable for advising and making recommendations to senior leaders, in particular for the public sector
• Ability to work proactively - planning and organising your own work with reference to appropriate strategies, policies, processes and protocols, and drawing from appropriate team members as needed.
• Commercial acumen including shaping research propositions, and an aptitude for building relationships, nurturing opportunities and structuring mutually beneficial partnerships
• Excellent listening, facilitating and influencing skills, including influencing senior leaders and external stakeholders and negotiating to achieve desired outcomes

• Research, innovation or technology background, with a passion about emerging technology and some domain expertise or interest in technology policy
• Experience with a range of research methodologies (both qualitative and quantitative), and an ability to critically assess research to draw insightful conclusions and recommendations for the client, presented in an accessible and compelling narrative.
• Experience leading a team, capability or portfolio of work, including setting direction and overseeing delivery quality
• Experience providing delivery oversight, including risk management and resource planning across multiple projects.
• Experience of working successfully through collaboration, contributing to the success of a delivery team
• Evidence of building trust-based relationships with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders such as startups and corporate clients as well as understanding the practicalities of working in a small and growing company
• A proven ability to be able to provide a credible, outside-in perspective to clients with regards to emerging market needs, trends, opportunities and technologies of interest to explore
• Experience developing repeatable research frameworks or tool kits to support scalable delivery desirable
• Higher Education degree, or equivalent knowledge gained via work experience. (Essential)
• SC or DV clearance desirable

• A passion for and understanding of emerging technologies (e.g. AI, quantum, biotechnology, cyber, IoT) and the innovative startups that exist in this space.
• The ability to balance rigour and rigour to maximise impact.
• Flexible when it comes to working within a matrix structure with changing organisational and operational requirements.
• Personal resilience and the ability to remain focused on the overall objective, responding to challenges in a calm and measured manner
• This role may require some national travel for delivery of projects and travel to all Plexal sites. 
• Due to the nature of this position, our work, and our client engagements, you must be willing and eligible to achieve a minimum of SC clearance. To qualify for SC clearance, you must be a British Citizen or have resided in the UK for the last 5 years with no extensive periods outside of the UK. Pre-existing SC welcome. For more information about clearance eligibility, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/united-kingdom-security-vetting.
• Willingness to accommodate in-person and remote working patterns.

Plexal’s Values:

Mission: We inherit the mission of UK government and deliver it in an agile and creative fashion.

Collaboration: We believe in the power of working together.

Equality: We strengthen ourselves as a team by embracing the different.

Care: People are at the heart of what we do; we care about our customers, members and colleagues.
 
As a start-up, we thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced work environment dedicated to empowering innovators. We embrace individuals who leverage technology and creativity to tackle our greatest challenges head-on. We strongly advocate for maintaining a harmonious work-life balance, our goal is to ensure every member of our team can authentically be themselves and live their best lives. We firmly believe that innovation and creativity flourish when we cultivate a diverse workforce, comprising highly skilled individuals with a wide range of perspectives to contribute.
 
In return we will offer you:

• Salary: £80,000 - £100,000 depending on skills and experience
• Annual bonus scheme
• A generous pension scheme (with a company contribution of up to 10%)
• Private healthcare, life assurance and critical illness cover
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
• Volunteering day