We are looking for a Head of Community Engagement who will lead the community engagement team and work with colleagues right across Our Future Health to help us recruit a more diverse cohort. You will also be responsible for monitoring the diversity of the wider Our Future Health cohort, making recommendations for how we can continually make our recruitment more inclusive, and for further building our organisational knowledge of how to engage with diverse communities.

Our Future Health will be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to detect, prevent and treat diseases. We are a charity, supported by the UK Government, in partnership with charities and industry. We work closely with the NHS and with public authorities across all nations and regions of the UK.

Our plan is to bring together 5 million volunteers from right across the UK who will be asked to contribute information to help build one of the most detailed pictures we have ever had of people’s health. Researchers will be able to use this information to make new discoveries about human health and diseases. So future generations can live in good health for longer.

What you’ll be doing

Leading the Community Engagement team, your key responsibilities will include but not be limited to:  

• Leading the diversity workstream, a cross-organisational workstream focused on improving the diversity of our cohort.
• Delivering our strategy for engaging with diverse communities, focusing first on learning through the delivery of pilots and then leading the scaling up of the most effective approaches.
• Ensuring we have robust plans in place for all our activities, and that we are evaluate them effectively, using this evaluation to inform decisions on which activities we scale up or stop doing.
• Monitoring the diversity of our cohort, making recommendations for developing our recruitment to further remove barriers to engagement for under-represented groups and taking a key role in driving our strategy for diverse recruitment.  
• Being an advocate for Our Future Health in meetings with people from under-represented groups and driving the story and narrative that is shared with partners, stakeholders and funders.
• Identifying opportunities for, negotiating, and agreeing recruitment partnerships with a diverse range of stakeholders and community leaders. 
• Championing the continual improvement of our organisational understanding of the barriers to under-represented groups joining our programme.

Requirements

You will have led high performing teams and be an experienced and effective line manager, to succeed, you will also have some of the following skills:

• Have strong experience of leading successful community engagement programmes, with a focus on delivering innovative solutions, tangible results, and cost-effective solutions.
• Have experience and understanding of working with under-represented and diverse groups.
• Have experience of developing, implementing, and monitoring strategy for diversity initiatives and/or community engagement programmes.
• Have experience of working with leaders from different ethnic groups and faiths.  
• Have a dynamic, flexible approach, with excellent organisational skills and attention to detail.  
• Be someone who works well in a busy, changing environment with tight deadlines.  
• Be able to build relationships and work confidently with colleagues and external stakeholders at all levels and from all backgrounds.    
• Have excellent written and oral communication skills with the ability to communicate complex messaging clearly and in a way that is meaningful for different groups of people.  
• An experienced and effective line manager.
• A good understanding of or experience in the health sector is desirable.
• Experience of engaging with diverse communities about health research is advantageous.

Benefits

• Up to £70,000 per annum basic salary.
• Generous company pension package with employer contributions of up to 12%.
• 30 days annual leave (plus bank holidays).
• Continuous career development with regular appraisals and learning and development opportunities.
• A lovely new office in Holborn, Central London – we offer flexible and remote working arrangements.

Join us - let’s prevent disease together.