Who are Ambition Institute?

A great teacher changes the future every day. Especially for children who have had a tough start in life, a teacher can be the critical factor in their success.

At Ambition Institute we help schools tackling educational disadvantage to keep getting better and help their teachers and school leaders to become more expert over time.

That’s how we’ll make sure every child gets a great education and the best possible start in life.

• We train teachers and leaders at all levels to get better at the things that make the biggest difference: what you teach, how you teach it, and how you create the conditions for schools to thrive.

• We share what works. Everyone can benefit from evidence of how great teaching and leadership can improve schools and change lives, so we connect people to the latest research and best practice.

• We champion every teacher and school leader’s potential to develop, as the driving force for sustainable school improvement.

What would we like…?

Are you experienced in supporting leadership teams and other colleagues to maximise the value of intelligence gained from data.  

We're looking for an experienced data and insights professional to join us as Director, Data and Insights on a 12-month FTC, maternity cover basis.

The successful postholder will lead our approach to programme self-evaluation, developing the systems and processes that help us understand the quality of our intent and implementation, and our programme impact.

You'll oversee the roll out of a data strategy that seeks to refine our data infrastructure to improve how we collect, store, process and report on data across the organisation, and ensure that our data capabilities are in line with the scale and scope of our work. 

We would like you to:

• Lead our approach to programme self-evaluation in order to monitor, evaluate and continually improve the quality of our work

• Oversee the work to gain insights about participant learning (knowledge acquisition and behaviour change)

• Lead the team to maximise their impact

• Oversee the implementation of data governance processes, in partnership with technology and compliance colleagues;

If you have a track record of designing and leading the implementation of system leading self-evaluation processes and are able demonstrate successful experience of leading a team with diverse specialisms and expertise - we want to hear from you.

Working in a hybrid way, you’ll be attached to either our Birmingham, London or Manchester office and will report into the Executive Director of Strategy and Impact. In line with our current ways of working, you’ll be expected to be in the office at least 1 day a month in addition to team days, and this may be reviewed by us.

What’s in it for you….?

• Competitive annual salary.

• Professional development for all staff.

• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays and 'winter shut down’ between Christmas and New Year.

• Employer pension contribution of 11%.

• Agile, hybrid working culture, so you can manage when and where you work.

• Staff affinity networks that help keep equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of our work.

• Blind recruitment process to ensure equality and fairness in our hiring.

• Enhanced maternity pay after a year’s service.

• Shared parental leave package.

• Access to free, confidential 24/7 wellbeing and support line.

• Comfortable and collaborative workspaces in the city centres of Manchester, Birmingham and London

• Work-from-home technology package to support hybrid working.

• Interest free season ticket / bike loans.

ABOUT YOU

We don’t expect the person we hire to have all of the following, but this should give you a sense of what would enable you to thrive in this role and in our team:

YOU SHOULD APPLY FOR THIS ROLE IF:

• You care deeply about educational disadvantage and being part of an organisation that challenges inequality.

• You have a good work ethic and strive to make a difference in the job you do.

• You always give maximum effort to understand and meet the needs of our partners and participants.

• You always have a great attitude so we “can do” for all our colleagues, partners and participants.

• You are open to feedback and learning because we want to keep getting better.

• You work with your initiative to bring new ideas and a fresh perspective.

• You are well organised and can prioritise work that will have the greatest impact.

YOU’LL LOVE WORKING AT AMBITION IF…

• You want a career with a person-centred organisation with a cause at its heart.

• You have a collaborative work ethos, bring warmth and good humour to work and constructive outlook to every situation.

• You enjoy working in a fast-moving workplace, with a great support structure around you.

• You would like to grow with an ambitious organisation as it progresses over time

• Want flexibility in how you work – splitting your time between one of our offices and remote working and managing your own working patterns to get the job done.

How to apply  

Applications will be considered for all locations and must be received by the closing date, 9am on 29 January 2024. Interviews are expected to take place week commencing 5 February.

Our mission needs the best people for the job, which is why we use sift questions to assess candidates’ genuine knowledge and skills. Sift questions are an opportunity for you to show us how you would do the job you are applying for, so please avoid using ChatGPT or other generative AI tools. We want to see your response, so those found to use content taken from AI tools will have scores adjusted down.