Role Overview

This is a rare opportunity to join the Nest Insight team as a permanent, full time Senior Research Lead. We are looking for a Senior Research Lead with a passion for using their outstanding research skills to generate compelling insights and robust evidence with the power to drive policy and market change to make a positive difference to people’s financial security and financial wellbeing.
This role will lead the delivery of key parts of our current research programme, contribute to the development of our future programme direction, act as a spokesperson and thought leader for Nest Insight, line manage and develop project Researchers and deputise for the Director of Research and Innovation when required.

All our work focusses on understanding the challenges low- to moderate-income households in the UK face, and exploring and evaluating potential policy and market solutions to those challenges

In this role, you will work across some or all of the following areas:

• Understanding the impacts of precarious work and income volatility on financial wellbeing, including factors such as self-employment, zero hours contracts, caring responsibilities and disabilities and health conditions
• Building financial security and financial resilience, including considering current and future solutions, such as workplace saving, accessible loans, community finance and earned wage access
• Supporting journeys towards wealth and asset building, including understanding the barriers and enablers to household financial growth
• Supporting retirement saving and understanding retirement saving behaviours, challenges and opportunities in context.

Please download a full job description to find a full scope, deliverables, experience and personal attributes required for this role. 

Flexible and agile working

Everyone's personal situation is different. To make the most out of hybrid working we've introduced different ways of working, which include (subject to role requirements):

• Hybrid of office and home working (there will be an expectation to attend the office, as required)  
• Reduce or vary working hours
• Reduce or vary the days worked
• Work from home (or a different location)
• Work compressed hours
• Job share

Directorate/Department Overview

Nest Insight is a public-benefit research and innovation centre. Our mission is to find ways to support people to be financially secure, both today and into retirement. We conduct rigorous, cutting-edge research, working collaboratively with industry and academic partners to understand the financial challenges facing low- and moderate-income households. We use these data-driven insights to identify and test practical, real-world solutions. Our findings are shared widely and freely so that people around the world can benefit from our work.

Whilst our research programme began with a focus on retirement saving, we now take an increasingly wide-angled view of household finances and financial wellbeing. For example, this year we have been working with SUEZ, TransaveUK and a team of academics at Harvard and Yale to pilot an opt-out approach to workplace payroll savings (which has been hailed as a ‘remarkable trial’ and ‘the way ahead’). We are about to begin a large-scale, longitudinal UK household financial diaries project.

Organisational Overview

Nest Insight is a business unit of Nest Corporation, but we are responsible for raising our own operating budget through grants and sponsorship. We currently have a core team of 10 people working across research, data analysis, partnerships and communications. The team is passionate about the work we do and proud of what we are achieving. We are innovative thinkers, not afraid to challenge the status quo. We work flexibly, creatively and collaboratively. We are committed to supporting each other to learn and develop. This is an exciting time to join Nest Insight –we’re growing quickly with lots of exciting projects in the pipeline and plans to expand our reach significantly over the next three years. 

Diversity and Inclusion

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of their age, belief, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, pregnancy or caring responsibilities, socio economic background, sex, sexual orientation, religion or race or any other legally protected status.

We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

We are a level 2 Disability Confident Leader under the Disability Confident Scheme. As a Disability Confident Committed organisation, we’re part of the guaranteed interview scheme. If you need any reasonable adjustments to support you during the recruitment process then please contact us: [email protected].