Job Description

Centre for London is London’s independent think tank, and a registered charity. As Research Director, you will lead Centre for London’s research team, developing new solutions to London’s critical challenges, securing funding for our work, preparing, publishing and promoting reports, supporting public events, and communicating our work to stakeholders and policymakers. 

As a member of the senior leadership team, you will help develop and implement the organisational strategy; contribute to the development, fundraising and delivery of events and other projects; and promote the ideas of the organisation to build its influence in existing and new public and private arenas. 

The recommendations of your team will make a difference to policy and practice – tackling issues such as housing, poverty and inequality, employment and skills, transport and the public realm, the climate and nature crises, community resilience, and London’s place in the UK and the world. You will be line– managed by the CEO and work closely with the External Affairs and Development teams.

This role would best suit someone with significant experience leading policy research programmes – in a think tank, consultancy, central or local government, academia or similar. You will have a strong understanding of policy in London and the UK, project management skills, and be able to credibly communicate complex ideas to different audiences – in meetings, in writing, through blogs and articles, and in speeches. You will have strong analytical skills, including a track record of qualitative and quantitative research. You will have experience in fundraising, will have managed budgets, and will be confident working with researchers at different stages in their careers. However, we are less interested in what you have done, and more in what you can do.

This is ideally a full-time role; however, flexible working is embedded within our culture. We would be open to applications from people who would like to work compressed hours, part time (0.8 minimum) or to people applying as a job share. We view London’s rich and diverse culture as a strength, and we want our team and trustee board to reflect the city we serve. We are keen to encourage applications from women, people from minority ethnic and/or less advantaged backgrounds, or from communities often underrepresented in urban policy.

Full details of the role can be found in the job description. If you meet the criteria in the person specification and are excited about this opportunity, we’d love to hear from you. The successful candidate must have permission to work in the UK by the start of their employment. 

We are committed to reducing unconscious bias in our selection processes. Staff who shortlist applications will not see applicants’ personal information (including your name and responses to our diversity monitoring questions). For this reason, please create an application ID code (your initials, followed by two random numbers) and use that on your CV and cover letter instead of your name.

If you would like to speak with someone about this opportunity, please check our website for contact details to email Johnathan Tuck (Operations Manager). 

For full details on how to apply, please check our application guidelines in our job description attached. 

We will ask you to complete an online form with your CV attached. 

• The form will ask you to upload a pdf of your CV.
  • Your CV should be maximum 2 pages.
  • The filename should be your initials and two numbers e.g. AA14. Please include this code as a header within the file too.
  • Please remove any reference to your name, including your email address.
• The form will ask you to respond to the question: How do your experiences and interests make you a good candidate for this role? (400 words max)