Operations Manager - Research & Insights Consultancy

A growing healthcare technology company in the midst of an exciting transition to a subscription-based model. As they scale our research function, we are looking for a driven and commercially minded Research Operations Manager to join their team and play a pivotal role in how they plan, deliver, and continuously improve our research workflows.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who thrives in a dynamic environment and is passionate about building scalable, efficient systems that empower research teams to do their best work.

The role:

They are looking for an experienced Research Operations Manager to join the business as one of two people responsible for building a new, centralised Research Operations function. This is a high-impact, hands-on leadership role for someone who thrives on building structure, improving delivery, and enabling research teams to do their best work at scale.

You will be responsible for overseeing research delivery across multiple products, with a core focus on time, quality, profitability, resource utilisation, and operational scalability. You will lead a team of five analysts and specialists and work closely with senior stakeholders across the business.

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of analysts and specialists
• Set priorities, manage workloads, and maintain high standards for delivery
• Build a positive, inclusive team culture with strong psychological safety
• Define and deliver a Research Ops strategy aligned to business and subscription delivery goals
• Own the Research Ops roadmap, capacity planning, and KPIs
• Create scalable processes to support multiple simultaneous research streams
• Support scaling plans and pricing assumptions alongside delivery feasibility
• Run an intake and triage process for research requests, aligning on scope and priority
• Manage projects across the portfolio: timelines, dependencies, risks, resourcing, and communications
• Establish playbooks and templates, introducing cadence-based planning (monthly, quarterly, rolling roadmaps)
• Implement change control to protect team capacity and margins
• Own and administer the research tool stack (database tools, recruitment panels, scheduling, transcription, repository)
• Maintain a searchable research repository with tagging standards, taxonomy, and governance
• Develop data surfacing tools with a focus on automation and user experience
• Ensure compliance with GDPR, consent, data retention, and security best practices
• Maintain SOPs for sensitive data, NDAs, recordings, and vendor data processing
• Run periodic audits to keep governance current and practical
• Manage the Research Ops budget including tool licensing, incentives, and panel providers
• Negotiate contracts, manage renewals, track ROI, and evaluate vendor performance
• Define and track operational metrics: delivery predictability, capacity utilisation, recruitment efficiency, cost per subscription
• Run retrospectives, identify bottlenecks, and implement sustainable process improvements

You

Essential

• Demonstrable experience in Research Operations Management, supporting user, product, or market research
• 6+ years' similar experience, including 3 years in people management
• Demonstrable experience in an operations management or research operations role
• Proven track record of building and improving workflow and project management systems from scratch
• Excellent project and programme management skills
• Experience in or strong interest in the subscription/repeatable business model
• Strong operational detail: documentation, governance, training, budgeting, vendor management
• Commercial awareness and understanding of business drivers
• Familiarity with GDPR and data privacy considerations
• Background or interest in healthcare or healthcare technology

Desirable

• Data analytics capability, with hands-on experience using tools such as Power BI or similar
• Exposure to AI tools and their application in operational workflows
• Project management qualification
• Experience with research CRMs, recruitment tools, knowledge bases, and data visualisation platforms

What’s on offer?

• £50,000 – £55,000 depending on experience + 20% performance bonus (company and personal)
• 27 days holiday + bank holidays, with option to buy additional leave
• Company pension: 4% (increasing to 7.5% after 3 years)
• Health plan + life insurance
• Paid volunteer time off
• Hybrid working: 3 days in office, 2 from home
• A genuine opportunity to shape a new function in a fast-growing, international business

Could this be the role for you?

This Research Operations Manager role is one not to be missed; it encompasses the opportunity to work with an exciting health tech research company and help shape the expansion. To discuss this role further or to find out about other roles I’m currently working on, please get in touch at [email protected] or hit apply to submit your current CV.

Unless otherwise stated, if applying for a job within the UK or European Union, you must ensure that you are already authorised to work there.
Carrot Recruitment acts as an Employment Business and an Employment Agency on behalf of our client in recruitment for this role.
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, colour, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression.

If there are any arrangements or adjustments we can make to assist you at interview then please let us know and we’ll be more than happy to assist.