Senior Evaluation Manager

M·E·L Research is a social research agency, with expertise in research, evaluation and behavioural insights. With 40 years’ experience in working for the UK’s public services, we have a very strong focus on what we want to achieve as a business.

We believe that all businesses have a duty to be socially responsible to re-invest in society, be active contributors to the local community, and to minimise their environmental impacts. We push for social value – in why we work, how we work and who we work with. Click here to see our recently published Social Value report.

You can read more about what it is like to work at M·E·L Research here.

Our history and journey

Formed in 1985, M·E·L Research has grown steadily to a core in-house team of over 30 research and evaluation staff, plus many more telephone interviewers and external CAPI interviewers and support staff. We are on an exciting growth journey, expanding our research and insights capabilities, enhancing our evaluation services, and embedding our data visualisation tools alongside recognised quality accreditations.  

Joining M·E·L Research means becoming part of a confident and forward-looking company, ambitious about the future and committed to broadening the expertise and solutions we offer our clients. At the heart of everything we do is our social purpose: to make a meaningful and lasting difference to society, to the communities we serve, and to our own people.

Why join the M·E·L Research team?

As a result of a successful period of growth, we are looking to strengthen our evaluation team through a number of appointments, including a Senior Evaluation Manager to develop and deliver a portfolio of evaluation projects for public services and third sector clients.

Project, policy or programme evaluations may range from topics such as public health, primary/secondary care, mental health and wellbeing, arts and culture and housing. Current clients include Mind, Welsh Government, Mental Health Foundation, The Wildlife Trust, NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, Welsh Cancer Network, Birmingham City Council and Macmillan.

The role will focus on managing the delivery of evaluation projects, from designing the programme theory, evaluation framework, research tools, through to delivering primary and secondary research activities, analysis, and reporting. Demonstrable experience to showcase the above is essential, and candidates will need to be proficient in project management and client servicing and fully competent in delivering evaluation projects.

You will have a good understanding of different evaluation approaches, e.g. outcome harvesting, appreciative enquiry, participatory evaluation, Most Significant Change, realist evaluation, and ideally you will be experienced in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. You will be confident in writing proposals and pitching for work to potential clients. You will be used to working in a fast-paced environment and managing a number of evaluations at the same time for different clients across the country.

Benefits

Full details on what it is like to work for M·E·L Research can be found here.  

We offer employees a wide range of generous benefits including:  

• Flexible working arrangements based around the needs of the employee (such as family commitments/needs/childcare).  We are a very family-orientated business and encourage flexible hours and homeworking.  
• Provision of employer contributions to Royal London personal pension scheme starting from a 4% contribution and rising to 8% (subject to employee contributions that meet the auto-enrolment requirements)  
• In addition, paid annual leave allowance of 33 days per annum, including bank holidays (pro-rated for part-time hours), and your birthday  
• 2 paid volunteer days per year  
• Life assurance policy at 3x basic annual salary  
• Health cashback medical care scheme and employee benefits scheme inc. retail discounts  
• Eligibility for annual company profit and performance bonus scheme dependent on company performance  
• Annual pay reviews and cost-of-living pay increases (also subject to the company’s financial performance).  

Job description

Post: Senior Evaluation Manager

Job Location: Remote (with a requirement to come into the Birmingham office on a bi-monthly basis)

Reporting to: Head of Evaluation

Salary Range: £40,000-£45,000 depending on experience/location (37.5 Hours per week) plus potential profit bonus, pension and other benefits .

Full job specification

For the full job specification, please see the Senior Evaluation Manager briefing pack.

Person Specification

This person specification details the experience, knowledge, skills, ability, training, education and qualifications that are considered to be essential to fulfilling the requirements of this post.

Please demonstrate in your covering letter, using appropriate examples where possible, that you have the skills and experience to meet the following criteria for the post.  Your ability to meet the criteria will be assessed using a number of methods including your CV,  covering letter, interview, and where applicable presentation or work-based tests.

Essential

• Applicants must be UK residents with the right to work in the UK
• Over 5 years’ experience in managing and delivering evaluation and research projects from start to finish e.g. designing an evaluation project, undertaking literature reviews and other desk/secondary research, implementing qualitative and quantitative research methods as required,  analysing and interpreting data, and preparing and presenting client reports
• Experience of working with public sector/third sector clients
• Experience in developing logic models and theories of change
• Understanding of participatory approaches and co-design methods
• Placed-based research and systems thinking experience
• Ability to interpret a client brief and prepare compliant evaluation proposals
• Client management skills including presenting and convening meeting and workshops with clients
• Experience in developing evaluation frameworks and utilising different evaluation approaches
• Ability to translate data/evidence into narratives (storytelling) and present findings that are engaging and visually appealing
• Excellent client management and communication skills (written, verbal and presentational)
• Excellent organisational and operational project management skills, and ability to plan and deliver work accurately and on time and to budget.
• Ability to interpret a client brief and prepare compliant research proposals.
• Excellent MS office skills, including Word and PowerPoint, Excel and / or Access knowledge.
• Good team player but also ability to take responsibility for projects and work independently

Desirable

• Commercial skills in developing sales leads and responding to client requests
• Knowledge of economic evaluation methods such as VfM, cost-benefit analysis, SROI
• Full UK driving license and access to own car
• Able to work evenings and weekends when required

Equal opportunities 

M·E·L Research is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and value the diverse perspectives this brings to our work.

Applications close Monday 27th April.

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