We are recruiting for a Director of Research and Operations – apply now!

Come and join our team!

0.8 – 1.0 role with at least two days a week in London
£58K FTE

This is an exciting, rare and challenging opportunity to join our executive team and board at The Centre for Education and Youth. We are looking for someone with the enthusiasm, commitment and skills to lead our exceptional team alongside our CEO and Director of Partnerships. Please find the full CfEY Director of Research and Operations job advert here

About the job

First and foremost, we are looking for someone who has leadership experience (leading teams, departments and/or projects, though not necessarily at director level yet), a strong grounding in mixed methods research design and delivery and experience building and leading research partnerships, ideally with a focus on children and young people. 

Being a research geek is really key – the person that takes up this role will support the whole team to ensure the methods we propose in new projects are robust, appropriate and feasible so you will need expertise and credibility in this regard. You will also have substantial experience of writing funding proposals securing project income from a range of funders, and of leading multi-stranded research and evaluation projects involving staff and external partners. 

The operational aspects of the role involve overseeing and supporting the operations team, overseeing our finances alongside the CEO and making strategic decisions about projects, prioritisation and deploying the team’s capacity. To fulfil the operations side of this role you must have a good mind for processes and systems and some financial acumen, but you do not have to have a background in operations. Our excellent operations team will support you and deliver most operational tasks day-to-day. 

Currently, we work across a large range of exciting and innovative projects with a diverse set of clients who work across the education and youth sectors. However, in order to support our growth and greater impact we are seeking to build more partnerships, with other research organisations and higher education institutions, and secure funding for larger research projects. The successful candidate for this role will lead our efforts in building partnerships that lead to funding and will design and oversee these research projects, and would ideally bring a relevant network of organisations along with them. You will not be alone in this mission! All of our team members work collaboratively to secure funding for the projects they know will have impact. 

CfEY is a wonderful, unique place to work. Our culture is difficult to explain, but easy to feel when you arrive. We take our work seriously; we take ourselves less seriously. Our structures and decision-making are as open and transparent as possible, and we encourage non-hierarchical approaches within our team. We all tend to muck in on all sorts of tasks, regardless of job title. We’re looking for someone who can both support this culture and move it forward, challenging and supporting the rest of the team and making working together fun.

The Process

To support equal opportunities and minimise the risk of bias, we are asking candidates NOT to include their name in their CV and covering letter body or file name.

Please send a maximum two-page CV tailored to this role as well as a maximum 1.5 page cover letter why you think you are suited to this job and why you’d like to work with us to [email protected]. Lee-Ann will pass your documents on to the shortlisting team.

Please note that we are happy to make reasonable adjustments to support disabled or neurodivergent applicants, we will share these throughout the process, should you be selected for interview, but if at any time you would like to make a request or share any details of your needs, please do email [email protected].  Abi will treat your request with confidentiality (if needed) and will work out the best way to ensure our processes work for everyone. Abi will not be involved in sifting applications or sitting on the interview panel.

We are running a rolling application process and will conduct a review of applications on 26th September and begin to arrange initial interviews with candidates. Applications will stay open beyond this date and we will regularly review applications and conduct interviews on a rolling basis until we find the right candidate. 

Please find the full CfEY Director of Research and Operations job advert pdf here

Please find the full CfEY Director of Research and Operations job advert word doc here

Thank you for your interest!