You will also oversee Ambition’s Data & Insights function, ensuring we have high-quality data, evaluation, and insight to understand our reach, quality, and impact and to support effective organizational decision-making.

You will contribute to the development of our data capability and provide senior sponsorship of significant data projects that improve our infrastructure, systems, and use of data.

Working in a hybrid way, you’ll be attached to either our Birmingham, London, or Manchester office and will report to Executive Director, Strategy & Impact. In line with our current ways of working, you’ll be expected to be in the office at least 2 days a month, in addition to team days, and this may be reviewed by Ambition.

Skills, Knowledge, and Experience

To succeed in this role, you'll have proven experience in:

• Significant experience of leading a varied portfolio of high-quality research, with the intellectual credibility and methodological breadth to guide research across different topics, methods, and types of project.
• An established external profile, communication skills, and appetite to develop an authoritative voice on teacher development, school leadership, and wider education workforce issues.
• Deep expertise in research design and methodology, supported by a PhD in a relevant field or an equivalent record of high-quality research and publication.
• A strong track record of building successful research partnerships, contributing to wider collaborative research, and securing external funding.
• Significant experience of providing strategic leadership to data, insights, and/or evaluation, including using data and evidence to strengthen organizational decision-making and impact.
• Experience of leading and developing multidisciplinary teams, managing significant resources, and contributing to organization-wide strategy and change.
• Strong knowledge of the English education system and educational disadvantage, with excellent judgment and communication skills and the ability to influence senior internal and external stakeholders.

What’s in it for you…?

• Competitive annual salary
• Professional development for all staff
• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays and 'winter shut down’ at the end of December/beginning of January
• Employer pension contribution of 11%
• Agile, hybrid working culture, so you can manage when and where you work
• Staff affinity networks that help keep equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our work
• Blind recruitment process to ensure equality and fairness in our hiring
• Enhanced maternity pay after a year’s service
• Shared parental leave package
• Access to free, confidential 24/7 wellbeing and support line
• Comfortable and collaborative workspaces in the city centers of Manchester, Birmingham, and London
• Work-from-home technology package to support hybrid working
• Interest-free season ticket / bike loans

We don’t expect the person we hire to have all of the following, but this should give you a sense of what would enable you to thrive in this role and in our organization:

You should apply for this role if:

• You care deeply about educational disadvantage and being part of an organization that challenges inequality
• You have a good work ethic and strive to make a difference in the job you do
• You always give maximum effort to understand and meet the needs of our partners and participants
• You always have a great attitude so we “can do” for all our colleagues, partners, and participants
• You are open to feedback and learning because we want to keep getting better
• You work with your initiative to bring new ideas and a fresh perspective
• You are well-organized and can prioritize work that will have the greatest impact

You'll love working at Ambition if…

• You want a career with a person-centered organization with a cause at its heart.
• You have a collaborative work ethos, bring warmth and good humor to work, and a constructive outlook to every situation
• You enjoy working in a fast-moving workplace, with a great support structure around you
• You would like to grow with an ambitious organization as it progresses over time
• Want flexibility in how you work – splitting your time between one of our offices and remote working and managing your own working patterns to get the job done.

How to apply…

Applications will be accepted for all office locations.

All applications must be received by the closing date 11:59 pm on 2 November 2026. First-stage interviews are expected to take place on 9 November 2026. Second-stage interview dates are to be confirmed.

We recognize that AI function tools (such as ChatGPT or other generative AI tools) are here to stay and can be helpful for applications, including to assist in researching for application responses and to shorten your first draft. However, we are observing a growing trend in the use of AI, and we would caution applicants against relying too heavily on such tools when drafting responses.

The pitfall of such tools is that they produce generic responses that don’t showcase individuality, specific experiences, or real-life examples. This usually results in applications being unsuccessful. We want to evaluate your response, and we will be looking for answers that use examples and experiences that are clearly specific to you. You are more likely to successfully demonstrate your soft skills like communication and teamwork when preparing answers to application questions yourself and this helps mitigate the unintended consequences of AI-generated responses.

If we suspect you have used AI inappropriately, the panel reviewing your application may adjust how your response is rated. For more details of what we consider to be acceptable use of AI function tools in our application process, please review our FAQs on our careers page.

Ambition Institute is proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. We welcome applications from disabled people and, as part of our commitment, offer an interview to applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria for the role (although where we receive a particularly high number of applications through the scheme, we may not be able to interview everyone who meets the criteria). We are committed to making reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process and encourage you to let us know if there are any adjustments that would help you participate fully.

We are committed to the safeguarding of children and the most vulnerable in our society and, as such, we are unable to employ individuals with relevant convictions, including the following: a conviction for an offence involving violence or dishonesty, of a sexual nature or against minors, or for any other offence that is relevant to the nature of the services provided by our organization.

For any questions or queries, please review our FAQs | Ambition Institute Careers (pinpointhq.com) in the