Senior Research & Insights Manager

Role Purpose

Marketing and Communications at the British Council is a strategic function which drives awareness, understanding and engagement with us across our diverse audiences. We use insight, knowledge and analysis of our market and our customers to engage them with our work and our products and services in the most impactful and effective way. We lead the development of our brand and use our expertise to tell inspiring stories to enhance our global reputation, build lifelong relationships, engage our staff and demonstrate our impact.
 

Our English business unit promotes high-quality English teaching and learning, supporting the UK’s English language teaching sector. We provide high-quality English teaching through our network of teaching centres and online and through blended learning. And we connect English teachers throughout the world with through our trusted networks and access to resources to support their work.

The Exams portfolio spans English proficiency testing, including the world’s leading English test, IELTS and the British Council’s own Aptis test, as well as a wide range of UK schools and professional qualifications. Our work promoting and delivering exams underpins the international higher education student market in the UK

To provide expert global research and insights project delivery and advice, using a mix of methodologies, for the English and Exams (E&E) Strategic Business Unit (SBU).  It applies consistent approaches, standards and systems to ensure aligned and integrated approaches across the Marketing function and E&E SBU. 
 

This role drives and models best practice approaches, sitting within the English and Exams Marketing Innovation team, and works with Regional Insight, Marketing and Product colleagues to ensure engagement, alignment and where needed, supports them on specific projects.
Main opportunities and challenges for this role:

Subject/Sector Expertise 

• Monitors and evaluates market, customer and competitor trends in order to provide insights that enable English and Exams to continuously improve the relevance and appeal of our portfolio of products and services, and to respond to opportunities or threats appropriately, profitably and in accordance with corporate policies/priorities.
•  Participates actively in internal networks to ensure market and customer intelligence is shared in a timely and high-quality fashion to maximise the effectiveness of product/programme development and commercial planning.
•  Accountable for generating market, customer and competitor data and intelligence for English and Exams – market and economic trends and forecasting; segment data and profiling; customer sentiment and satisfaction; product feedback; performance data.
•  Manages the process that generates meaningful insights, identifies and makes recommendations to senior managers for improvements to our products and services or ways of working that enhance the operational effectiveness of their internal customers.
• Proactively participates in internal working group/peer networks to maintain a detailed understanding of both current and prospective products/programmes/services and uses this knowledge to inform effective delivery of market insight activities. 

Commercial planning

• Collaborates with senior management to develop effective schedules, procedures and systems for the collation, analysis and reporting of timely and informative market insight, to enable informed and effective business development planning, forecasting and performance monitoring.
• Uses a range of standard and bespoke research and analysis methods to identify new market/business development opportunities.

Consultancy, analysis & problem-solving

• Applies advanced market insight and analytics expertise to provide advice to English and Exams and develop and deliver agreed programmes of work. 
•  Applies analytical approaches to identify and assess current state of market insights and analytics within English and Exams, define opportunities for improvement and design, develop and implement agreed projects and initiatives, ensuring consistency with agreed systems and processes. 
• Undertakes expert analysis on options for change, benchmarking contemporary best practice, to support recommendations for change and contribute to market insight and analytics process and system development. 
•  Distils complex concepts and analysis into cogent and persuasive presentations, which convincingly influence decision-makers about the case for market insights and analytics projects and initiatives. 

Service improvement

• Commissions and manages market insight, analytics and research projects and initiatives for English and Exams.
• Ensures joined up planning and delivery of customer, competitor and market research, insight and analytics projects and initiatives. 
• Ensures consistent application of agreed data collection standards, templates and processes. 
• Reviews impact and effectiveness of projects and initiatives and identifies opportunities for improvement to the E&E Marketing Innovation Lead. 
•  Ensures identified improvements have measurable impacts on marketing performance 
• Actively plans to ensure E&E engagement, buy-in and compliance with changes that will be driven from the Marketing Innovation team and wider

E&E Marketing team. 

• Works collaboratively with other Insight roles and members of the market insight and analytics community within the organisation on other projects and initiatives. 

Commercial & financial management

•  Using agreed corporate systems and processes, plans and manages the budget for agreed market insight and analytics projects and initiatives. 
•  Conducts monthly and year-end reporting on progress against plan and deliverables, budget, and management of issues and risks. 
•  Actively applies learning from this process to improve financial planning, management and performance within English and Exams.  
• Reports on ROI and efficiency of research spend

Relationship & stakeholder management

• Plans how to establish and maintain nominated stakeholder relationships to support the achievement of agreed commercial and impact targets. 
• Works with market Insight roles in Cultural Engagement to seek synergies and share best practice.
• Builds effective working relationships globally, identifying key stakeholders and working together to deliver E&E goals and strategic aims.
• Develops peer/personal networks internally and externally to enhance own knowledge and expertise.

Role specific knowledge and experience:

• Proven experience in managing and commissioning market insight and analytics projects and initiatives within a large and complex organisation.
•  Demonstrable experience in providing expert advice and guidance on market insights and analytics
•  Demonstrable experience in coaching managers to use market insights and analytics to improve business performance
•  Ability to work with colleagues to identify and solve insight challenges and support the implementation of solutions 
•  Experience of developing and delivering processes to gather market data and transform it into insight with demonstrable benefits
• Able to conduct primary and secondary research from beginning to end, including scoping brief, recommending methodologies, conducting qual and quant research and reporting back against objectives.
   

Benefits include, but are not limited to:

• 32 days annual leave, in addition to public holidays
• 3 days volunteering leave
• Career average defined benefit pension scheme
• An unrivalled opportunity for you to get to use all the experience you’ve built up working in and/or leading global organisations to support us in building trust across the world