Role: Head of Impact
Salary: £90,000 – £100,000 + benefits
Location: Bedford / Hybrid (2 days per week in the office)
Contract: Permanent
Purpose of the Role
The Head of Impact is a senior strategic leader who will shape how the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) measures, evidences, and strengthens its real-world impact.
This high-profile role combines strategic influence with hands-on delivery. You will lead the evaluation of our work, embed a culture of evidence and learning, oversee a flagship research programme, and direct all performance reporting, KPI oversight, and impact measurement.
With a skilled team of around 10 research and evaluation professionals, you’ll have both the capability and the mandate to deliver on an ambitious remit. Your leadership will ensure MaPS achieves tangible, measurable improvements in people’s financial wellbeing across the UK – and that our impact is clear, credible, and trusted by the public, government, regulators, and partners.
In this role, you will:
- Lead our evaluation and impact strategy, embedding a culture where evidence drives decisions and outcomes shape everything we do.
- Establish and chair a new cross-MaPS forum to set research priorities and oversee evaluation activity.
- Present findings and recommendations directly to our Executive Committee and Board, influencing decisions at the highest level.
- Design and deliver a robust impact framework, oversee our flagship MoneyView financial wellbeing survey, and produce the annual MaPS Impact Report – a clear and trusted account of how we’re making a difference.
- Safely harness the opportunities of new methods and tools, including AI, while maintaining ethical and methodological rigour.
You will also scan the horizon for emerging risks, unmet needs, and changes in behaviour, ensuring MaPS remains relevant, responsive, and future-ready.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership and Impact Framework
- Lead the development and implementation of an organisation-wide impact and evaluation framework, fully embedded into MaPS’ strategy, business planning, budgeting, and performance cycles.
- Define and champion MaPS’ impact ambitions, ensuring activities and outcomes align with our long-term goal of improved financial wellbeing.
- Provide strategic insight into the reach and effectiveness of our work to guide prioritisation, service design, and policy direction.
- Act as senior advisor to the Executive Committee and Board on impact performance, equity of reach, and strategic opportunities or risks.
- Foster an outcomes-driven, evidence-led culture across the organisation.
Measurement, Evaluation and Insight
- Oversee the planning and delivery of MoneyView, ensuring it is a high-quality, nationally relevant source of longitudinal data on financial wellbeing.
- Lead the development and publication of the annual MaPS Impact Report, providing a clear, data-driven narrative on our impact and public value.
- Design and commission a portfolio of evaluation activity to assess service effectiveness, including external research partnerships where appropriate.
- Identify and address gaps in insight, particularly for underserved groups and those not currently engaging with our services.
- Develop innovative methods – from qualitative storytelling to behavioural analysis, advanced analytics, and AI-enabled tools – to capture and communicate impact.
- Turn insight into practical recommendations that shape strategy, service design, capability planning, and policy engagement.
Research Governance and Influence
- Establish and chair a new MaPS-wide forum to oversee research and evaluation priorities across MaPS.
- Ensure the forum enables high-quality, relevant, and ethical research that supports MaPS’ objectives.
- Present research findings and recommendations to the Executive Committee and Board, influencing organisational decisions.
Foresight and Future Readiness
- Lead horizon scanning to identify trends in consumer needs, demographics, technology, and economic conditions.
- Provide early warnings of shifts that may affect MaPS’ ability to deliver impact, ensuring our services adapt to stay effective.
Organisational Influence and Integration
- Embed impact thinking into business planning, budgeting, transformation, and performance reporting.
- Work with senior leaders to define clear impact pathways and KPIs for major programmes and initiatives.
- Build capability across MaPS to use evaluation and evidence effectively, providing tools, guidance, and constructive challenge.
- Align with data, risk, and governance functions to ensure transparency, compliance, and learning.
External Influence and Partnership
- Represent MaPS as a national thought leader on financial wellbeing and impact, contributing to policy debates, research networks, and public discussion.
- Build strong, collaborative relationships with government departments, regulators, think tanks, and academia.
- Influence and respond to policy agendas on social value, outcomes-based commissioning, and financial inclusion to keep MaPS at the forefront.