The Football Association
Grassroots Impact Manager - 12 Month Fixed Term Contract
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Impact Manager
The FA's Grassroots Division is looking for a purpose-led Impact Manager, with a strong analytical skill set to lead the development and delivery of a robust impact framework for grassroots football, ensuring The FA and County FAs can clearly evidence the difference football makes locally and nationally. This will include the evolution of The FA's Social Return on Investment (SROI) approach, ensuring alignment with other football partners and enabling evidence-based investment decisions.
This role is a 12-month fixed-term contract, with the possibility of extension, dependent on further funding.
What will you be doing?
- Develop and implement a new national impact framework for The FA Grassroots Strategy and County FAs, defining clear outcomes, measures, and methodologies.
- Develop and maintain a clear Theory of Change for grassroots football, linking strategic priorities to a consistent measurement approach.
- Lead the evolution of The FA's Social Return on Investment (SROI) model for grassroots football, quantifying the social and economic value generated through participation and programs. Work with football partners and Sport England to align on existing methodologies, where possible.
- Support County FAs to embed impact measurement within their approach, providing tools, templates, and guidance to ensure consistent and practical application.
- Work with County FA teams to build capability in monitoring and evaluation, including training, support, and ongoing challenge to ensure quality and consistency.
- Define and oversee measurement across key impact domains, such as health and wellbeing, community cohesion, crime and anti-social behavior, education and employability, equality and inclusion, and economic.
- Define and track core footballing outcomes, including participation growth and retention, diversity of participants, club sustainability, and workforce development.
- Work closely with The FA's Research & Insight and Digital Technology teams to ensure robust data collection, integration, and analysis, including the use of external datasets where appropriate.
- Aggregate local impact data into a national view, building a compelling narrative on the value of grassroots football to support strategic positioning, funding, and stakeholder engagement.
- Ensure alignment with external frameworks and priorities, including Sport England and government outcomes, to strengthen credibility and influence.
- Execute additional tasks as required to meet The FA's changing priorities.
- Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure that the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
- As part of The FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
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What are we looking for?
Essential for the role
Skills
- Strategic Thinking: Able to design and implement frameworks that link impact measurement to organizational priorities and long-term strategy.
- Stakeholder Management: Strong relationship-builder able to support, challenge, and influence a diverse network including County FAs and senior stakeholders.
- Problem-Solving & Framing: Able to translate complex or ambiguous impact questions into clear methodologies and practical approaches.
- Analytical & Insight: Strong ability to interpret data and evidence, drawing clear conclusions and translating these into actionable insights.
- Influencing, Storytelling & Communication: Able to present complex impact and evaluation concepts in a clear, compelling, and accessible way to a range of different stakeholders, including seniors and boards.
Experience
- Developing or delivering impact, evaluation, or performance frameworks.
- Working across multiple stakeholders or delivery partners to embed consistent approaches.
- Translating data and evidence into clear reporting and recommendations.
- Working with complex datasets and/or insight outputs to inform decision-making.
- Presenting insights to senior stakeholders in a clear and compelling way.
Beneficial to have
Skills
- Understanding of Social Value / SROI methodologies and experience applying them in practice.
- Familiarity with public sector outcomes frameworks (health, education, crime, community).
- Experience of working within sport, physical activity, or place-based systems.
- Experience working with datasets such as ONS, Active Lives, or local authority data.
Experience
- Delivering or supporting SROI analysis.
- Working with sport, participation, or community-based programs.
- Influencing investment decisions through evidence and insight.
What's in it for you?
We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles. To achieve this, we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class, Elite Performance Centre, St. George's Park in Staffordshire, which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.
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We pride ourselves on offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:
- Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encourages you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
- Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
- Free private medical cover.
- A contributory pension scheme.
- An additional 'Thank You' day's leave, volunteering days, as well as 25 days of annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract).
- A hybrid working model which offers greater flexibility.
For more information on what it is like to work at The FA, please visit our FA Careers page, https://www.thefa.com/about-football-association/careers
Currently, we are working within a hybrid working model whereby the expectation is to work from your contractual location for part of the week, and as and when required by the team. The remaining days can be worked remotely. We will continue to monitor this model, and it may be adjusted in future if deemed necessary. The contractual location of this role can be found on the FA Careers page.
We are a diverse workplace, aspiring to represent football across the country. The Football Association actively promotes inclusion and diversity, encouraging you to be the best version of yourself at work.
We welcome applications from everyone and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer. If you have any particular requirements in respect of the recruitment or interview process, please mention this during your application.
As part of The FA's commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.
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