Director of Research and Impact

Start date: September 2025 (or as soon as possible following this)

Based: Leeds, or London. Hybrid working

At The Brilliant Club, we mobilise the PhD community to support students from less advantaged backgrounds to access the most competitive universities and succeed when they get there. We work with students who, because of their family income, parental history or the postcode they live in, are at risk of missing out on the life-changing opportunities linked to higher education.

We are excited to be recruiting a Director of Research and Impact to lead the charity’s research and evaluation work. This senior role will be a part of the Senior Leadership Group and will report to the Chief Programmes and Communities Officer. Furthermore, the role will involve influencing and collaborating with different teams from across the organisation to ensure the research work that we do is to the highest standards and aligns with the charity’s strategic priorities. The role will be a figurehead internally and externally on all things research and evaluation.  

The Research and Impact Department has two key areas of responsibility: evaluating and reporting the impact of the charity’s programmes and providing research and evaluation consultancy to mission-aligned organisations. The team consists of a Senior Impact and Evaluation Officer who evaluates the impact of our programmes and oversees stakeholder impact reporting, as well as a Research and Evaluation Consultancy Lead and Senior Research and Evaluation Officer who deliver the charity’s consultancy work via Brilliant Consulting.

Through our consultancy work, we have partnered with a range of universities and education organisations. A key part of this role will be building our consultancy work further in order to generate income and new strategic partnerships.

The successful candidate will have a proven track record of leading research and evaluation work in a relevant field and will have strong research skills and knowledge of evaluation methodologies. They will be highly experienced with managing stakeholder relationships and have commercial acumen. While this role can be based at either our London or Leeds office, some travel will be required (mainly to London) to attend in-person meetings.

The role will best suit someone who:

Essential

• Has a PhD, or equivalent, in a relevant field.
• Has advanced knowledge of both quantitative and qualitative research skills and knowledge of evaluation methodologies. 
• Has a proven track record of delivering high quality evaluations in educational settings.
• Has experience of managing an evaluation team and balancing research priorities with wider organisational priorities.    
• Proven ability to lead winning research and evaluation bids.
• Experience of establishing and managing strong stakeholder relationships.
• Has excellent written and verbal communication skills, and experience of research communications.
• Evaluator service to support the charity’s evaluation of long-term outcomes.
• Will adhere to information security policies included in the charity’s ISO 27001 manual and Complete information security training.
• Has a demonstrable passion for furthering The Brilliant Club’s mission.

Desirable

• Ideally has published in a field relevant to The Brilliant Club’s work.
• Ideally has knowledge of the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) and UCAS’ Outreach

You can view the full job description here and submit your application via the 'Apply' button.

Deadline: 9:30am, Thursday 12^th June 2025

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