UK

United Kingdom · Innovation Intrapreneurship · Director/VP (16-20 years)

Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship

Here is the whole job, in plain words. What it is, a real day, what you decide, how you're judged, how people get here and where they go next. Then the part no course gives you: twelve AI tutors who learn your work.

  • Experience bandDirector/VP (16-20 years)
  • Direct reports25-100+ reports
  • Reports toChief Strategy Officer or CEO
  • UK framework levelUsually a director, accountable for a division and its numbers

Also advertised as Head of Corporate Ventures · VP, Strategic Innovation · Chief Growth Officer (Innovation) · Director of New Business Development

Built on an analysis of 43,079 real UK job descriptions · grounded in qualifications employers recognise

Start with a free Future Fluency check, tuned to Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship

Ten quick questions, one per Future Fluency, asked against this role rather than a generic one. About five minutes, and no card.

Start the check, free

1What this role really is

This isn't a role for dabblers; it's about making big bets and seeing them through. You'll be the person shaping our future growth, building entirely new capabilities, and making sure we don't just talk about innovation, but actually deliver it. Expect to be challenged, to challenge others, and to lead a significant part of how we stay relevant and competitive.

2What you'd actually use

The tools this job runs on, and how well you'd need to know each one.

Miro / Mural (Enterprise Management)Strategic

Evaluating and selecting the enterprise-wide digital collaboration platform. Developing and deploying a library of best-practice templates for the entire organisation. Ensuring seamless integration with other business systems.

Figma / Sketch (Design System Governance)Architect

Overseeing the creation and governance of the innovation team's design system. Making strategic decisions on prototyping tools and their integration with development workflows across the company.

Dovetail / EnjoyHQ (Research Repository Strategy)Strategic

Managing the entire research repository. Establishing best practices for data governance and insight sharing across the company to avoid redundant research and ensure insights inform strategic decisions.

Jira / Asana (Innovation Pipeline Integration)Strategic

Designing the end-to-end innovation pipeline management process within the tool. Integrating it with other business systems (e.g., finance, product, HR) for seamless tracking and reporting at an enterprise level.

Aha! / Productboard (Corporate Idea Portfolio Management)Expert

Managing the entire corporate idea portfolio. Using advanced scoring models (e.g., RICE, WSJF) to prioritise initiatives. Creating and presenting executive-level roadmaps and investment cases.

Tableau / Power BI (Executive Innovation Dashboards)Advanced

Designing and building custom dashboards to track the health of the innovation pipeline, experiment velocity, and ROI of scaled initiatives for executive and board reporting. You'll be the one presenting these.

3What you get to decide, and how that grows

Power in a job isn't your title. It's what you're allowed to decide. Here's how it grows as you move up.

The choiceComing inWhere you are nowThe step above
Strategic Innovation Portfolio InvestmentNo authority. Supports with data.Proposes specific project investments within a programme.Recommends portfolio allocation to Director. Manages £50K-£500K project budgets.
Team Structure & HiringNo authority.Provides input on candidate fit for specific roles.Interviews and makes recommendations for junior roles. Mentors new hires.
External Partnerships & Vendor SelectionNo authority.Researches and recommends potential vendors for specific tools.Negotiates and selects vendors for workstream-specific tools/services up to £50K.
Organisational Process DesignFollows established processes.Identifies inefficiencies and proposes minor process improvements.Designs and implements new processes for specific workstreams (e.g., a new A/B testing framework).

4How you'll be judged

The scoreboard, honestly: the hard targets, how often each one is actually looked at, and the quiet human signals that never make it onto a dashboard.

Innovation Pipeline Value
The total projected revenue or cost savings from new ideas currently in our innovation pipeline (from validated concept to scaled initiative).
Target · Generate >£10M in potential new revenue opportunities annually within the pipeline.

Q2 pipeline review shows 3 new concepts with a combined projected 3-year revenue of £12.5M, exceeding the £10M target for the year.

Scaled Initiatives Success Rate
The number of new initiatives that successfully transition from pilot to full-scale deployment, meeting or exceeding their initial business case targets (revenue, cost savings, market share).
Target · Successfully scale >2 new initiatives per year that deliver >£1M in annualised revenue or cost savings.

In 2024, two new digital services launched, one generating £1.5M in new revenue and another reducing operational costs by £1.2M, both exceeding target.

Innovation Maturity Score
Improvement in the company's internal innovation maturity score, based on a defined framework (e.g., capabilities in discovery, experimentation, scaling, culture).
Target · Improve the company's innovation maturity score by one full level (e.g., from 'Emerging' to 'Developing') annually.

After implementing new processes and training, our internal assessment showed a jump from 2.8 to 3.5 on a 5-point scale, indicating a move from 'Developing' to 'Proficient'.

Return on Innovation Investment (ROII)
The financial return generated by scaled innovation initiatives relative to the investment made in the innovation function and specific projects.
Target · Achieve a positive ROII of >1.5x on the overall innovation portfolio within a 3-year horizon.

Over the last 3 years, £5M was invested in innovation, yielding £8M in net new revenue from scaled initiatives, resulting in an ROII of 1.6x.

Organisational Buy-in & Sponsorship
The extent to which senior leadership and business unit heads actively champion innovation projects, allocate resources, and participate in strategic innovation forums.
  • Regular attendance and active participation from C-Suite in innovation reviews
  • business units proactively seeking innovation partnerships
  • increased internal funding for new ventures
  • positive feedback in internal culture surveys regarding innovation support.
Talent Development & Retention
The ability to attract, develop, and retain top innovation talent, fostering a highly skilled and engaged team.
  • Reduced attrition rates within the innovation team
  • successful internal promotions
  • positive feedback in performance reviews about growth opportunities
  • external recognition of team members (e.g., industry awards, speaking engagements).
Strategic Influence & Thought Leadership
Your ability to shape the company's overall strategic direction through insights from the innovation pipeline and to represent the company as a thought leader externally.
  • Regular invitations to present to the Board
  • direct input into annual strategic planning
  • external speaking engagements at industry conferences
  • publications in relevant journals or blogs
  • being sought out by other business leaders for strategic advice.
Culture of Experimentation
The degree to which the organisation embraces hypothesis-driven development, rapid prototyping, and learning from failure across all levels.
  • Increased number of small-scale experiments run across business units
  • documented learnings from 'failed' pilots
  • reduced stigma around failure
  • faster decision-making cycles based on evidence rather than opinion.

5Would you like it

The honest version. What people enjoy, and what grinds them down.

What people enjoy
Shaping the Future

You'll spend your days thinking about what our business could look like in 3-5 years, identifying emerging trends, and championing the projects that will get us there. This means less 'doing' and more 'thinking' and 'influencing'.

Leading the annual strategic foresight exercise, presenting potential future scenarios to the Board, and getting buy-in for a new multi-year investment thesis.

Building Organisational Capability

You'll be obsessed with building a robust innovation engine: hiring the right talent, designing effective processes, and embedding an experimental mindset across the company. It's about empowering others to innovate, not just doing it yourself.

Designing and launching a new internal accelerator programme, recruiting a diverse team of innovation specialists, and coaching senior leaders on how to sponsor new ventures.

Driving Tangible Business Growth

Ultimately, you're driven by seeing new ideas translate into real revenue, market share, or significant cost savings. You'll be accountable for the P&L impact of your innovation portfolio, which means tough decisions and constant prioritisation.

Presenting the P&L impact of a newly scaled venture to the CFO, making the call to pivot or kill a struggling project, and securing funding for the next big bet.

What frustrates people
  • The 'Sprinkle on some Design Thinking' request: Being brought into a project far too late, after the solution has already been decided, and being asked to simply validate it or run a 'fun workshop'.
  • Stakeholder Whiplash: Business partners who champion innovation in public but get cold feet and revert to the status quo as soon as a truly disruptive idea is presented.
  • The ROI Question: Constantly having to justify the value of your work using short-term financial metrics for a process that delivers long-term, often intangible, strategic value.
  • Ideas Dying on the Vine: Pouring your heart into developing a concept with a team, only to see it get shelved indefinitely due to a budget cut, a re-org, or a shift in strategy.
  • Organisational Inertia: The sheer difficulty of getting a large organisation to move quickly, take risks, and embrace new ways of working, even when the data is clear.
What this role does not give you
  • Daily hands-on facilitation of small workshops – you'll be leading the leaders, not running the day-to-day sessions.
  • A predictable, linear path – innovation is inherently messy and chaotic.
  • Guaranteed success for every project – many will fail, and you'll need to learn from them.
  • The ability to make decisions without significant political navigation and consensus building.

6Who you work with

You'll be directly accountable for identifying and nurturing the next generation of our business. This means shaping our long-term growth strategy, allocating significant capital to new ventures, and building the internal capabilities (people, processes, technology) that allow us to innovate consistently. Your decisions will have a direct impact on our P&L, market position, and ultimately, our survival in a rapidly changing world.

Inside the business
  • C-Suite (CEO, COO, CFO, CTO)
  • Business Unit Managing Directors
  • Heads of Product, Marketing, and Technology
  • Legal and Compliance Teams
  • Board of Directors
Outside the business
  • Major Strategic Partners (e.g., tech vendors, consultancies)
  • Venture Capital Firms
  • Industry Bodies and Regulators
  • Key Customers and Market Influencers

7What you need before you start

Not a wish list. The things you would be expected to already have.

  • Proven track record of leading and scaling innovation programmes in a large, complex organisation for at least 5 years, with measurable business impact.
  • Extensive experience (10+ years) in design thinking, lean startup, or agile methodologies, demonstrating the ability to apply them strategically, not just tactically.
  • Demonstrable experience managing a significant P&L or budget (£2M+) and making high-stakes investment decisions.
  • Experience building, leading, and mentoring large, diverse teams (20+ people, including managers).
  • Strong executive presence and a proven ability to influence C-Suite executives and Board members.
  • A deep understanding of market dynamics, competitive landscapes, and emerging technologies relevant to our industry.

8What to practise next

Where the job is going, and what to do about it starting this week.

Low-Code/No-Code Platform Strategy

These platforms dramatically reduce the time and cost to build and test new digital products, democratising innovation. As a Director, you'll need to strategically decide where and how to deploy these platforms to accelerate your innovation pipeline and empower citizen developers, without creating 'shadow IT' risks.

Platform Selection & Governance · Citizen Developer Empowerment · Integration with Core Systems · Risk Management (Security, Compliance, Technical Debt)

  • This quarter: Research 2-3 leading low-code/no-code platforms (e.g., Bubble, Webflow, Microsoft Power Apps) and understand their core capabilities and limitations.
  • Next 6 months: Partner with IT to run a pilot programme for a low-code platform, building a simple internal tool or customer-facing MVP with a small innovation team.
  • Next 12 months: Develop a strategic roadmap for how low-code/no-code can accelerate your innovation pipeline, including training and governance plans.
  • Ongoing: Regularly review case studies of successful and failed low-code deployments to refine your strategy.

Quick win: Identify a simple internal process that could be automated with a no-code tool (e.g., a simple data collection form or a project tracking dashboard) and challenge one of your team members to build it. Learn by doing, even if you're not coding yourself.

9Staying current once you are in

What people here do to keep up
  • Regularly attend and speak at leading industry conferences on innovation, strategy, and emerging technologies.
  • Maintain a strong professional network with other innovation leaders, VCs, and startup founders.
  • Actively mentor emerging talent within the innovation space, both internally and externally.
  • Contribute to thought leadership through articles, blogs, or whitepapers on strategic innovation.
  • Engage in continuous learning through executive education programmes or specialised courses on AI, ethics, or new business models.

10How the AI economy is changing work like this

Before we ask anything of you, here's what we can already say about AI and work of this kind:

The new skill this role is being asked for: AI for Strategic Foresight & Opportunity Mapping

Generative AI and advanced analytics are now capable of sifting through vast amounts of unstructured data (news, research papers, social media) to identify weak signals, emerging trends, and potential market white spaces far faster than any human team. Leaders who can harness this will have a significant competitive advantage.

We'll only ever tell you what we can actually back up. No hype, no scare tactics.

Your PlanIllustration

Built for Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship

2 units that map to this job, from the qualifications that cover it.

  1. Lead innovation within an organisationNCFE · covers 1 of 5 standardsLevel 7
  2. Encourage innovationNCFE · covers 2 of 5 standardsLevel 4
These are the real units behind this job, in the order they rank for it. Nothing here is marked done, because this plan has not been started by anyone yet. Yours would fill in as you go.

The rising capability

Zavmo analysis

What's rising in its place

This is where the work is heading, and the higher pay with it. Get fluent here and the shift stops being a threat and starts being your edge.

AI for Strategic Foresight & Opportunity Mapping

Generative AI and advanced analytics are now capable of sifting through vast amounts of unstructured data (news, research papers, social media) to identify weak signals, emerging trends, and potential market white spaces far faster than any human team. Leaders who can harness this will have a significant competitive advantage.

  • Predictive Analytics & Machine Learning for Trend Spotting
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Unstructured Data Analysis
  • Ecosystem Mapping with AI
  • Bias Detection & Ethical AI in Foresight

Ethical Innovation & Responsible AI Design

As innovation accelerates, particularly with AI, the ethical implications of new products and services become paramount. Regulators, customers, and investors are increasingly demanding responsible innovation. Leaders must embed ethical considerations from concept to launch to avoid reputational damage, legal issues, and market rejection.

  • Ethics by Design Principles
  • AI Governance & Explainability
  • Bias & Fairness in Algorithmic Decision Making
  • Data Privacy & Security in Novel Applications

What you’ll use

Skills this role draws on

Technical

  • Enterprise Design Thinking & Innovation Frameworks
  • Business Model & Value Proposition Design (Strategic)
  • Organisational Experimentation & Scaling
  • Qualitative & Quantitative Research Synthesis (Strategic)
  • Intrapreneurship Programme Design & Management

The pathway

How you actually get there, here

How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.

  1. 1

    Lead Innovation Strategist / Principal Consultant (Internal or External)

    5-8 years at Lead/Principal level

    Skills to master

    • Designing multi-project innovation programmes, managing cross-functional teams, influencing senior stakeholders, strategic planning, budget management (£500K+).

    You're ready to move on when

    • Successfully launched and scaled multiple innovation projects with measurable business impact.
    • Consistently sought out by senior leadership for strategic advice and problem-solving.
    • Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing teams.
    • Strong external network and reputation in the innovation community.
  2. 2

    Head of Product Innovation / VP Product

    7-10 years in Product Leadership

    Skills to master

    • Deep product lifecycle management, market analysis, P&L responsibility for product lines, building and leading large product teams, driving product vision and strategy.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Successfully launched and grown new product lines or businesses.
    • Proven ability to identify and capitalise on market opportunities.
    • Strong commercial acumen and understanding of business drivers.
    • Experience leading product strategy for a significant business unit.
  3. 3

    Management Consultant (Specialising in Innovation & Strategy)

    8-12 years in top-tier consulting, reaching Partner/Principal level

    Skills to master

    • Client relationship management at C-Suite level, driving large-scale organisational change, strategic problem-solving across diverse industries, leading complex engagements, business development.

    You're ready to move on when

    • Track record of advising C-Suite on innovation and growth strategies.
    • Experience leading multi-million-pound consulting engagements.
    • Ability to quickly diagnose complex organisational challenges and propose actionable solutions.
    • Strong network across various industries.

11Where this role leads

The long view:This role is a launchpad for shaping the very future of our organisation and potentially entire industries. It demands courage, vision, and relentless execution. If you're ready to lead at the highest level and leave a lasting mark, this is your opportunity.

Pay & demand

Pay and demand for this role will appear here, each figure traced to a named authoritative source (e.g. the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, under the Open Government Licence). We don’t show numbers we can’t attribute.

The ten Future Fluencies

Zavmo analysis

The credential is what you can do today. These are what keep you valuable.

A qualification proves you can do the job as it's defined today. These ten are what decide whether you're still the obvious person for it in five years. They're the capabilities employers are now writing into senior roles faster than people are learning them. Zavmo weaves them through whatever you study, so you come out with both: the credential and the fluency.

The highlighted ones are the Fluencies your role leans on hardest, from how Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship is actually changing. In about two minutes, the free confidence check asks where you stand on each of the ten. That's the whole check, and it's what makes the plan yours rather than generic.

Where it leads

Roles this leads to

The record names a next step, but the catalogue has no page for it yet:

  • Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) / Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)
  • Managing Director / General Manager (New Business Unit)

12The team that's yours

No two people are taught the same way. This is one-to-one, not one-to-many.

Zavmo is a hyper-personalised AI learning platform. Twelve virtual tutors, each with a different way of teaching, and one orchestration agent that picks the right one for the moment. So every single lesson is shaped around you, your role, and the way you learn. Not a course everyone sits through. A conversation built for you, and no one else.

…and nine more, matched to you after your first chat. Meet all twelve

Start free and meet yours

13What it feels like

A conversation, not a course

Because your tutor knows your role, your projects and your last session, learning sounds like this. And it's different for every single person:

Lead innovation within an organisationLevel 7

Applied to your work in Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship

This unit aims to equip learners with the skills to analyse innovation practices, design innovation processes, support the implementation of ideas, and review performance to foster long-term organisational success.

How the thinking builds
  1. Remember
  2. Understand
  3. Apply
  4. Analyse
  5. Evaluate
  6. Create
An illustration of a Zavmo lesson, built from this role’s own route. The unit, its objective and every criterion above are the awarding body’s own words, not an example.

One to one, not one to many

No two people run this the same way

A course is written once and handed to everyone. This is assembled around you, and keeps changing as it learns you. Five things it reads, and what each one changes.

  1. Your actual work Every lesson is taught against a live piece of your own work, not a worked example from a textbook.
  2. What you already know The first conversation finds your starting point, so you skip what you can already do and spend the time on what you cannot.
  3. The conditions you learn under Not a learning-styles quiz. The evidence does not support those. The dimensions the research does back, read once and used to shape the plan.
  4. How far you got last time It picks up mid-thought. The tutor knows what you said, what you struggled with, and what it asked you to try.
  5. Which tutor suits the moment Twelve of them, each for a different kind of thinking. The one who walks you through a first idea is not the one who stress-tests it.

See how you learn, free. Eight questions, no sign-up. A directional taster; the diagnostic inside Zavmo goes deeper and keeps adapting.

DemonstrateIllustration

Evidenced on your work in Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship

You do not finish by watching something. You finish by showing it on the work you already do, against the measures this job is judged on.

  • Innovation Pipeline ValueThe total projected revenue or cost savings from new ideas currently in our innovation pipeline (from validated concept to scaled initiative).Q2 pipeline review shows 3 new concepts with a combined projected 3-year revenue of £12.5M, exceeding the £10M target for the year.Generate >£10M in potential new revenue opportunities annually within the pipeline.
  • Scaled Initiatives Success RateThe number of new initiatives that successfully transition from pilot to full-scale deployment, meeting or exceeding their initial business case targets (revenue, cost savings, market share).In 2024, two new digital services launched, one generating £1.5M in new revenue and another reducing operational costs by £1.2M, both exceeding target.Successfully scale >2 new initiatives per year that deliver >£1M in annualised revenue or cost savings.
  • Innovation Maturity ScoreImprovement in the company's internal innovation maturity score, based on a defined framework (e.g., capabilities in discovery, experimentation, scaling, culture).After implementing new processes and training, our internal assessment showed a jump from 2.8 to 3.5 on a 5-point scale, indicating a move from 'Developing' to 'Proficient'.Improve the company's innovation maturity score by one full level (e.g., from 'Emerging' to 'Developing') annually.
  • Return on Innovation Investment (ROII)The financial return generated by scaled innovation initiatives relative to the investment made in the innovation function and specific projects.Over the last 3 years, £5M was invested in innovation, yielding £8M in net new revenue from scaled initiatives, resulting in an ROII of 1.6x.Achieve a positive ROII of >1.5x on the overall innovation portfolio within a 3-year horizon.
These are this job's own measures, with its own targets. Nothing is marked evidenced, because nobody has started this yet. Yours would fill in from the work you bring.

Your passport

This isn't a certificate you file away. It's a passport to the life you're designing.

Every credit you earn and every fluency you build adds up: evidence where it counts, carried with you. Zavmo keeps the map: where you are, where you're heading, and the next step, at your pace, around your life. From Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship to Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) / Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), and whatever you decide comes after.

Level 7 · in progressAI Fluency→ Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) / Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)→ your design
Where this takes you

This role is a launchpad for shaping the very future of our organisation and potentially entire industries. It demands courage, vision, and relentless execution. If you're ready to lead at the highest level and leave a lasting mark, this is your opportunity.

See Your Progress GrowIllustration
Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship
  • Enterprise Design Thinking & Innovation Frameworks
  • Business Model & Value Proposition Design (Strategic)
  • Organisational Experimentation & Scaling
  • Qualitative & Quantitative Research Synthesis (Strategic)
  • Intrapreneurship Programme Design & Management
This is your Mind Palace on learn.zavmo.ai. Every skill above comes from this role's own record, not an example borrowed from another job. A node lights up when you evidence it, and what you build stays yours between jobs. That is the part a course cannot do.

14The detail, folded away

Everything else the record holds

The career branches in full, how AI is already showing up in the day-to-day, and the questions people ask about this job. Here when you want them, out of the way while you decide.

Where it leads next, rung by rung

Where it leads

The career path, and where it branches

Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship is a start, not a ceiling. Each step below asks for new skills and hands back more autonomy.

  1. Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) / Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)

    3-5 years as Director of Innovation

    C-Suite (Level 7)

    • Corporate venture capital fund management.
    • Global innovation ecosystem development.
    • Public relations and media engagement on innovation topics.
    • Deep understanding of regulatory impacts on future business models.

  2. Managing Director / General Manager (New Business Unit)

    3-5 years as Director of Innovation

    Executive Leadership (Level 6/7)

    • Go-to-market strategy development and execution.
    • Customer acquisition and retention at scale.
    • Supply chain and operational efficiency for a new venture.
    • Building strategic partnerships for market expansion.
Working with AI on the job

Working with AI

Where AI is starting to help

As a Director of Innovation, your time is gold. You're paid to think big, build teams, and drive strategic change, not get bogged down in administrative tasks or sifting through endless reports. That's where AI comes in.

We're not talking about replacing your strategic brain; we're talking about augmenting it. Imagine having an intelligent co-pilot that handles the grunt work, synthesises complex information, and even helps you draft compelling arguments for the Board. Our internal AI Hub provides the tools and training to make this a reality, letting you focus on what truly moves the needle.

AI for Strategic Foresight & Trend Spotting

Feed market reports, competitor analyses, and academic papers into an AI to quickly identify emerging trends, potential disruptions, and white spaces for innovation. Get synthesised summaries and 'so what' analyses in minutes, not days. This helps you stay ahead of the curve.

Automated Innovation Portfolio Analysis

Use AI to analyse performance data across your innovation portfolio. It can flag underperforming projects, identify common success factors, and even suggest optimal resource reallocation based on predefined criteria. This gives you real-time insights for tough decisions.

Executive Communication & Board Report Drafting

Generate first drafts of board presentations, strategic memos, and internal communications. Feed in your key messages, data points, and desired tone, and let AI structure the narrative, refine the language, and even suggest compelling visuals. This saves hours of writing and editing.

AI-Assisted Team Development & Coaching

Use AI to help craft personalised development plans for your team members, suggest relevant training resources, or even simulate challenging coaching conversations. It's like having an executive coach for your leadership development efforts, helping you grow your people more effectively.

Common questions

Common questions

How do you become a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship?

Common routes in include Lead Innovation Strategist / Principal Consultant (Internal or External) (5-8 years at Lead/Principal level), Head of Product Innovation / VP Product (7-10 years in Product Leadership) and Management Consultant (Specialising in Innovation & Strategy) (8-12 years in top-tier consulting, reaching Partner/Principal level). Times vary with prior experience.

Where can a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship progress to?

This role can lead on to Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) / Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) (3-5 years as Director of Innovation) and Managing Director / General Manager (New Business Unit) (3-5 years as Director of Innovation), depending on the skills you build.

What level is a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship in the UK?

This role aligns to RQF Level 7 on the UK framework, a guide to the depth of qualification it maps to, not a hard entry bar.

What new skills matter most for a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship?

Increasingly, AI for Strategic Foresight & Opportunity Mapping and Ethical Innovation & Responsible AI Design. These are the areas where the higher-paid, future-proof work is heading.

The honest bit

You’ve started things before

Most of them were built for a room full of people who aren’t you. A cohort moves on whether or not your week allowed it, and by the third week the thing you’re behind on becomes the reason you stop opening it.

There’s no cohort here, and no timetable to fall behind. Before anything starts, Zavmo asks when you’re sharpest and how long you can realistically sit down for, then builds the sessions around those answers. A bad fortnight changes your pace. It doesn’t put you behind.

And you only pay once you start learning. Searching and planning are free, and you can cancel any time — so the cost of finding out is an afternoon, not a year.

What it costs

Less than one coaching session. Every month.

A single career-coaching hour costs more than a month of this, and it ends when the hour does. Zavmo doesn't. It's £70 a month, about £2.30 a day, for a companion that knows a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship, works on the job you actually do, and keeps going at your pace rather than a timetable's.

  • Searching and planning stay free. You only pay when you start learning.
  • Your credits are yours. Regulated, and they don't vanish when a subscription ends.
  • Cancel any time and billing stops. No notice period, no minimum term.

Your path, personalised

You have the map. Walking it is the part we do together.

This route runs to 5 national skill standards. That is a real journey.

Zavmo shapes a learning experience as unique as you are. It fits how you learn, your pace and the work you already do. Every step stays benchmarked to recognised national standards. That’s the plan for becoming a Director of Innovation & Intrapreneurship: personal to you, and it still counts. The first steps are free.

Independent research finds well-designed intelligent tutoring performs nearly as well as one-to-one human tutoring: VanLehn (2011), Educational Psychologist.

A private tutor in the UK averages £35–40 an hour . Zavmo is £70/month.

A real plan on learn.zavmo.ai: Ofqual-regulated units, credits, and a three-month run at your own pace.
Start free No commitment. See your first steps free.

15Where to go from here

Other roles at Level 7

Same depth of qualification, different job. Useful if the work appeals but this particular role does not.

Other roles in Innovation Intrapreneurship

Stay in the field you know and move sideways rather than up.

If you leave this industry

The skills developed in this role—strategic foresight, organisational change, new venture creation, and cross-functional leadership—are highly transferable across virtually any industry undergoing digital transformation. You'll be well-positioned for leadership roles in technology, financial services, retail, healthcare, and consulting.

Not sure this is the right direction?

Work out what you actually want from work first, then come back and see which roles fit it. Takes about ten minutes.

This role profile is © 2026Growth Engineering Technologies Ltd. Built from UK occupational standards and regulated qualification data, and written for Zavmo.

You're not behind. You're right on time. The shift is only just beginning. Your role won't look the same in two years. Be the one who leads the change, not the one it happens to. Build my plan, free Here's the first ten minutes: a 2-minute confidence check → your personalised roadmap → meet the tutors matched to you. No card, cancel any time. No card. Build your plan, see your roadmap and meet the twelve tutors matched to you. All free. When you're ready to start learning, it's £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.