We are recruiting for a Mission Manager, A Fairer Start (Wales)

About Nesta

Our vision is that by 2030, Nesta will have improved the lives of millions of people by designing, testing and scaling new solutions to society’s biggest challenges.

We have chosen to focus on three guiding missions - A fairer start (AFS), a healthy life and a sustainable future (ASF). In each of these areas, we will work across the nations of the UK to partner with frontline organisations to generate and rigorously evaluate new interventions, and support their widespread adoption. We will support the creation of new products and ventures, and shape the system as a whole to support innovation.

Working with a range of delivery partners, we will deploy multi-disciplinary teams that bring together capabilities in design, data science, behavioural insights, experimental research, and arts and culture methods. We believe that by bringing together innovation methods to design, experiment, rigorously evaluate, and scale innovations, we can be a world leader in driving innovation for social good.

About this mission: A Fairer Start

We want every child to have the fairest possible start in life, so they can thrive and realise their potential.

Children born into disadvantage are far more likely to experience poor health, lower earnings, shorter life expectancy and lower levels of happiness than their peers. Closing the gap through targeted support at crucial moments of development is not just good policy, it is good economics: such interventions and system shifts are easily paid for by the long-term benefits of higher economic productivity and lower social costs.

The AFS team works to develop innovative, scaleable solutions to the factors that prevent children from disadvantaged backgrounds from thriving. We work on a range of projects, from applied innovation through to policy design, across the domains of parenting support, early childhood education and care, family income, integrated family support and funding.

Role Description

This role supports the work of Nesta’s A Fairer Start mission directly in Wales.

You will work proactively to develop a pipeline of projects, partnerships and collaboration opportunities in support of our Fairer Start mission in Wales.

You will work on a range of different projects within this mission, meaning your tasks will vary day to day. This means that alongside your core duties, you will have the opportunity to support the mission more broadly, either through supporting overall delivery of projects, and/or through working as a mission representative for critical organisational priorities such as Nesta’s commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

This role will suit someone who is curious and and excited to develop new skills through working on a range of projects: one day you might be conducting user research to understand how a service works (or doesn’t), another you may be conducting data analysis, or you might be helping to design and implement a new way of doing things to improve outcomes.

As the lead for the AFS mission team in Wales, you will play a critical role in establishing ways of working between Nesta’s missions and devolved nations, working with the rest of the mission team to ensure AFS has a strong presence in Wales and that learning from projects in the rest of the UK informs our work in Wales, and vice versa.

This role will be expected to:

• Lead on the delivery of projects within this mission field in Wales. This means directing and working on the end-to-end project cycle, for example:
  
  • Overseeing, conducting, and reviewing the outputs of primary research. For example: interviews, observations, data analysis.
  • Leading on the establishment of a project theory of change to explain how an intended outcome would be achieved through a particular solution.
  • Leading on identifying, shortlisting, testing, and selecting appropriate solutions for implementation and evaluation.
  • Working with colleagues from the Advanced Research Methods group, for instance to devise an appropriate evaluation design for any solutions being implemented and ensuring the technical details are fit for purpose in context.
  • Coaching partners through each prototyping cycle and the wider change needed inside the organisation to make it successful.
  • Owning relationships with stakeholders sponsoring the project and making sure they love working with Nesta.
• Work with the AFS Mission Director and Deputy Directors, as well as Head of Nesta Cymru, to scope new projects for this mission in Wales and set up effective teams to deliver this work. This includes scoping and agreeing the formal, technical parameters for each project (e.g. budget, team, deliverables), as well as building an effective culture for delivering the project (e.g. joining up well with central Mission team colleagues in London and building effective and impactful ways of working).
• Critically assess whether live projects are on track, and suggest / put in place mechanisms to realign the work plan as necessary.
• Quickly get to grips with the Wales-specific context that mission projects take place in. Working across a variety of projects means you will need to be able to develop contextual competence fast.
• Provide line management to team members, both permanent staff and other team members who are part of the project on a temporary basis as needed/required. This includes delegation and oversight of work, as well as personal and professional development.

Skills specification

Essential

• At least three years experience delivering relevant programmes or project work specifically and directly in Wales
• A detailed understanding of the Welsh operating environment in relation to the AFS mission
• Project/ programme management skills: you can proactively plan work, execute against the plan, identify and act on risks and issues, ensure that key stakeholders are engaged throughout, and keep track of spend against budget.
• A proven track record of delivering high-impact projects and programmes using innovation methods
• Stakeholder management skills: you can present ideas persuasively and navigate complex stakeholder discussion to keep project momentum, build and maintain strong working relationships, and drive better work through including more voices in the planning, designing, and criticism of it
• Ability to build contextual competence quickly (e.g. learn what key jargon means, seem credible in conversation with stakeholders, understand what is measured and what is important) quickly.
• Strong management skills
• Experience in the practice or policy context for the AFS mission - e.g. good knowledge of the policy and delivery contexts for parenting support, early childhood education and care, and the integration of family support (Flying Start)

Desirable

• Facilitation skills, e.g. leading workshops
• Research skills: you understand the fundamentals of exploratory research and evaluation. For example, you can interpret research findings, understand common statistics (such as standard deviation, confidence intervals, p values, and correlation coefficients), assess the strength of evidence for something, understand good practice for key research activities (such as interviewing)and analyse data sets to pull out key summary statistics and trends
• Excellent writing skills to tailor content to different audiences
• Fluent Welsh speaker
• Public speaking
• Technical expertise in one of the following areas: behavioural science; design thinking; experimental/quasi-experimental design; data science; arts and culture methods.

What we offer

Salary: £56,700 - £70,600 (offers are expected to be made towards the bottom of the band) plus array of benefits, including private medical insurance, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more

Location: The postholder will be based at our Cardiff office and would be expected to attend the workplace twice per week. The postholder must also be available for monthly travel to London.

Term: Permanent

Hours: This is a full-time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do.

Making an application

To apply for this role, please submit your application before 8:00am on 4th July 2025

First interviews are expected to take place w/c 14th July 2025 and second interviews are expected to take place w/c 21st July 2025.

At Nesta, we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results.

We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop.

This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful.

We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part-time hours, job shares and other arrangements.

Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.