Description

Research Consultant

Grow in a role where you design and deliver research, then help shape how it's used.

1        The role

We're looking for a Research Consultant to join our growing research team. This is a role for someone ready to run the day-to-day delivery of research projects: designing the research, managing fieldwork and working through the analysis, with senior colleagues there to guide and review. Over time, you'll grow into the more strategic and client-facing side of the work. It maps broadly to a Senior Research Executive in a market research agency, and to client-side researchers with two to five years' experience. You can already run a project, and you're looking for the scope to do more of it. What matters most to us is a genuine passion for high-quality research, and the judgement to reach for whichever method best answers the question rather than an off-the-shelf solution.

ICS is a niche consumer research and strategy consultancy working across regulated sectors and infrastructure: water, energy, transport and housing. We help the UK's leading utility and infrastructure businesses bring the consumer and wider social voice into decisions worth many millions, and often billions, of pounds. Our research sits inside a wider consultancy, so you'd work alongside our economics specialists, regulation specialists and investment planners, and see your evidence feed the strategic plans, long-term strategies and regulatory submissions it was built to inform. It doesn't just land as a report and get forgotten.

The work is varied, complex and nearly always ad hoc. We talk to consumers and stakeholders about difficult topics, choosing the method to fit each one: how to replace gas boilers, priorities for environmental improvement, options for future water supply. Our findings shape our clients' biggest decisions, and we often present them to senior decision-makers who aren't research experts themselves, so the work has to be both rigorous and clear. This role is built with a path forward: you start by leading delivery with support, and grow towards owning projects and client relationships as a Senior Consultant.

2        What you'll do

As a Research Consultant, you'll run the day-to-day delivery of research projects, with senior colleagues there to guide and review. You'll do the core research work, and take on more of the judgement and client-facing work as you develop.

On research projects, you will:

• Design the research. Draft questionnaires, discussion guides and sampling approaches yourself, with senior input coming as an upfront brainstorm or a review of your drafts.
• Set up and run fieldwork. Manage recruitment, fieldwork logistics and external suppliers, and project-manage delivery. You'll conduct some interviews and groups yourself, alongside Senior Consultants, the Research Director and specialist partners.
• Analyse the data. Own the analytical groundwork, from coding and data preparation to producing tables, and turn it into clear, well-evidenced findings.
• Contribute to reporting. Write sections of reports and build the charts and analysis behind them, working to a storyline shaped with senior colleagues.
• Support proposals and scoping. Contribute to winning new work, learning how studies are costed, scoped and pitched.
• Work with clients. Join weekly catch-ups, build genuine working relationships, and present sections of the findings, growing towards leading client conversations yourself.
• Keep projects on track. Own timelines and coordination, and keep delivery moving across projects.

Beyond research delivery

From day one, you'll also have the chance to get involved in our advisory work, where research evidence is turned into the decisions clients act on. That might mean helping a client design how they'll engage their customers over months or years to build the evidence for a major submission; drawing different strands of research together and helping write them into regulatory or strategy documents; or assurance work, giving clients independent confidence that their evidence is robust and will stand up to scrutiny. You'd start by observing and learning, working alongside the Research Director, Senior Consultants and our economics, regulation and investment planning specialists, with room to take on more over time.

3        What we're looking for

We care more about what you can do than the exact path you've taken. The essentials below are genuine requirements: this is a role for someone who can already run research, not someone learning the basics.

3.1   Essential
Research capability

• Able to run research projects and manage fieldwork, working with senior support rather than close supervision.
• Some experience of drafting research materials: questionnaires, discussion guides and stimulus (the materials shown to participants to respond to).
• Able to carry out your own analysis and write sections of reports (you won't be expected to author whole reports from the outset).

Quantitative strength

•  Strong quantitative experience: designing and running surveys, working with quantitative data, coding, and leading quant projects, whether you ran the analysis yourself or directed suppliers who did.
• A genuine appetite for mixed-method work: the role carries a lot of qualitative research, and we want someone who wants to do it.

Analytical rigour

• Accuracy and a strong eye for detail.
• The ability to interpret and synthesise data, and draw sound conclusions, ideally from more than one source.

How you work and communicate

• A self-starter who can run with things and manage your own time, while staying connected to the team and knowing when to seek input.
• Organised, and a strong communicator who works well as part of a team.
• Strong written skills: turning analysis into a clear, well-structured narrative for a senior audience who aren't researchers themselves.
• Able to create visually compelling reports and slides (we work in PowerPoint and Word), and comfortable presenting your findings, with room to grow into leading client sessions.

Practicalities

         The right to work in the UK, and UK-based. This is a home-based role, with occasional travel to our Warwickshire office and to client sites.

3.2   Desirable
The following would strengthen an application, but are not required:

•  Hands-on qualitative experience: designing and running focus groups, deliberative workshops or depth interviews, and analysing and presenting the findings.
• Experience of regulated sectors or infrastructure, or exposure to regulatory work, in water, energy, transport, housing or similar.
• Wider data-visualisation skills beyond PowerPoint.

ICS is a genuinely different place to work. We're not a traditional research agency: the work is varied, exciting and matters, and we give people real responsibility and the support to grow into it. Above all, we're passionate about getting the consumer voice into the room where significant decisions are made. If that sounds like the kind of role, and the kind of team, you've been looking for, we'd love to hear from you.