Location: United Kingdom (Full-time on-site, 5days/week)
Team: Product Innovation (UK) + Global CI & UX Insights
Scope: UK + EU Research Chapter
Experience Required: 6-8 years
Research Type: Qual, Quant, Mixed Method, UX
Seniority: Senior Individual Contributor
About the Role
This is not a traditional researcher role. We are looking for someone who is hungry to go beyond conducting research — someone who wants to become the consumer authority in the room. Sitting at the intersection of Product Innovation, Consumer Intelligence, and business impact, this person will act as the connective tissue between what consumers feel, need, and want, and how our products show up in their lives.
Based at our UK office (5 days on-site), you will be the primary research partner for our Product Innovation team in the UK. You will also be contributing to, and executing against, the broader EU-related research initiatives from the Global Consumer Insights (CI) and User Experience (UX) Insights team. You will be expected to own the full research cycle — from brief to boardroom — and translate findings into commercial decisions, not just decks.
This role suits someone who is 6-8 years into their research career, has made their mark, and is now ready to step up as a true consumer expert and innovation enabler.
What You Will Do
Consumer & Product Intelligence
- Serve as the go-to consumer expert for the UK Product Innovation team — proactively generating and sharing consumer understanding that shapes product strategy, not just responds to it
- Build deep, longitudinal knowledge of the consumer: their motivations, behaviours, unmet needs, cultural contexts, and life moments — so the team can make faster, smarter decisions with confidence
- Translate consumer complexity into clear, compelling commercial narratives that influence product roadmaps, feature prioritisation, and go-to-market decisions
- Develop and own a living consumer intelligence framework for the UK/EU consumer — tracking shifts in attitudes, category perceptions, and emerging needs over time
Research Design & Execution
- Lead end-to-end primary research across the product development lifecycle — from early-stage discovery and ideation through to concept testing, usability evaluation, and post-launch learning
- Design and execute both qualitative and quantitative studies using a mixed-method mindset — including in-depth interviews, ethnographic and observational research, usability testing, diary studies, surveys, MaxDiff, conjoint analysis, and concept testing
- Identify the most appropriate methodology for each brief, knowing when bespoke primary research is the answer and when secondary data, behavioural analytics, or rapid-turnaround DIY tools will serve better
- Manage external research partners, agencies, and suppliers — scoping briefs, overseeing quality, and ensuring on-time delivery without sacrificing insight rigour
Global Collaboration & EU Research Chapter
- Execute against research briefs received from the Global CI and UX Insights leadership team, acting as the EU regional lead for relevant research initiatives and ensuring findings are representative of and relevant to EU market nuances
- Build a strong working rhythm and trust with global counterparts — being a reliable, proactive, and intellectually rigorous partner who raises the bar for the team’s collective output
- Connect insights across the UK and EU landscape to identify patterns, tensions, and opportunities that global teams can act on
Stakeholder Engagement & Business Impact
- Present research findings in formats that provoke action — not lengthy reports, but sharp, story-led insight presentations, workshops, and briefings designed for senior stakeholders
- Partner closely with Product Managers, Designers, and Innovation leads to embed consumer insight into every stage of the product development process, not just at the beginning and end
- Define and track the measurable business impact of research — establishing clear KPIs, building feedback loops, and demonstrating how insights translated into decisions, product changes, or commercial outcomes
- Champion consumer empathy across the wider organisation — proactively sharing insights, trends, and consumer stories to build a culture of consumer-led decision making
What We Are Looking For
Experience & Background
- 6–8 years of research experience, ideally spanning both consumer/market insights and UX or product research — with a genuine track record of both, not just exposure
- Experience working on or closely with product teams, either in-house or on the agency side — with a demonstrable understanding of the product development process and how research fits within it
- Experience working within, or contributing to, global or multi-market research programmes — comfortable navigating global briefs while delivering locally relevant outputs
- Background in or strong affinity for consumer goods, retail, FMCG, technology, or any consumer-facing category where deep human understanding is the competitive advantage
Skills & Capabilities
- Mixed-method mastery: equally comfortable designing a 12-person ethnographic study or a 1,500-respondent quantitative survey — with the intellectual agility to know which is right and why
- Consumer storytelling: ability to distil complex, sometimes contradictory data into compelling consumer narratives that make stakeholders lean in, not switch off
- Strategic thinking: consistently able to connect consumer motivations to business goals — starts every brief by asking “what decision does this research need to enable?” not “what method should I use?”
- Synthesis and pattern recognition: ability to connect dots across disparate data sets, research streams, and cultural contexts to surface non-obvious insights and forward-looking implications
- Commercial acumen: understands how businesses work, how products are built and scaled, and how to frame insights in terms of business risk, opportunity, and value
- Stakeholder management and influence: proven ability to engage and align senior stakeholders, manage competing priorities, and create shared understanding across cross-functional teams
Mindset & Character
- Intellectually curious — perpetually interested in people, culture, and what makes consumers tick, beyond the confines of any specific brief
- Bias for action and impact — frustrated by insight that sits on a shelf; energised by research that changes decisions and drives measurable outcomes
- Growth-oriented — actively seeking to evolve from being a skilled researcher into becoming the team’s most trusted consumer expert
- Collaborative and generous with knowledge — comfortable working in open, cross-functional environments where influence is earned, not enforced
- Comfortable with ambiguity — able to define a clear research path when the brief is unclear, the timeline is tight, and the stakeholders are uncertain
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in Psychology, Anthropology, Social Sciences, Behavioural Science, Human-Computer Interaction, Marketing, or a related discipline — or equivalent demonstrable experience
- Proficiency with qualitative research tools (e.g., Dovetail, Lookback, UserTesting) and quantitative platforms (e.g., Qualtrics, Alchemer, DIY survey tools)
- Familiarity with analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics, Amplitude, Hotjar) to complement primary research with behavioural data
- Knowledge of GDPR and EU data protection standards as they apply to consumer research
Why This Role Is Different
Most research roles ask you to answer questions. This one asks you to own the consumer. The expectation is that over time, you become the person in the building who knows the consumer best — not because you’ve run the most studies, but because you’ve synthesised the broadest knowledge, built the deepest empathy, and developed the sharpest commercial instinct. Research is the method; consumer expertise is the destination.
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