UK job descriptions by sector
Innovation job descriptions
18 in this sector.
Level 2 jobs · 2
- Associate Innovation Coordinator The Associate Innovation Coordinator helps keep our internal idea engine running smoothly. Day-to-day, you'll be managing the flow of new ideas, making sure they land in the right place, and giving our colleagues the support they need to submit their best thinking. This role directly impacts how quickly we can spot and develop promising new concepts, which, honestly, affects our future growth and competitive edge. You'll typically sit right at the start of our innovation funnel, acting as the first line of defence and support. You're translating raw employee enthusiasm into structured submissions that our senior teams can actually review. When you do this well, ideas don't get lost, people feel heard, and our innovation pipeline stays healthy. If it's not done well, good ideas can slip through the cracks, and people might get frustrated, thinking their input doesn't matter. The challenge here is dealing with a high volume of varied submissions and keeping everyone engaged, even when their idea might not be a winner. The reward? You get to see the very first spark of something new that could genuinely change our business, and you're the one who helped nurture it from day one. View
- Innovation Analyst The Innovation Analyst is here to keep our idea management platform ticking over, making sure our internal innovation challenges run smoothly. You'll spend your days supporting employees who submit ideas, helping them navigate the system, and making sure their submissions are properly categorised. It’s a bit like being the friendly face of innovation, dealing with the day-to-day queries and keeping the data tidy. You'll sit right at the heart of our Innovation & Intrapreneurship team, acting as the first point of contact for our employees' bright sparks. You're the one who ensures the ideas actually land in the right place and get the initial attention they need. When you do this job well, our employees feel heard, the platform stays organised, and the right ideas get to the right people without a fuss. Get it wrong, and you'll end up with a messy system, frustrated colleagues, and potentially great ideas getting lost in the shuffle. The challenge here is really the sheer volume of ideas and making sure you're consistently helpful and accurate, even when things get a bit hectic. The reward? You'll get a front-row seat to how innovation works in a big business, seeing all sorts of interesting ideas come through, and you'll learn a ton about what makes a good idea stick. View
Level 3 jobs · 5
- Design Thinking Facilitator The Design Thinking Facilitator is responsible for independently planning and running workshops that help our teams solve tricky business problems by putting customers first. You'll take ownership of specific discovery sprints, guiding colleagues from different departments through the process of understanding user needs, brainstorming solutions, and testing ideas quickly. Here's the thing: you'll work at the intersection of product development, customer research, and business strategy. Your job is to translate what users really want into tangible concepts that our product and engineering teams can actually build. You're essentially the bridge between 'what if?' and 'how do we make it happen?'. When this role is done well, we get clearer problem definitions, more innovative solutions, and less wasted effort building the wrong things. When it's not, we end up with products nobody wants, frustrated teams, and missed market opportunities. The challenge is keeping everyone focused and comfortable with ambiguity, even when the answers aren't obvious. The reward? Seeing a team light up when they crack a tough problem, and knowing your work helps us build better experiences for our customers. View
- Global Innovation Portfolio Director The Global Innovation Portfolio Director (at this level, we often call it an Innovation Portfolio Specialist internally) is responsible for keeping a keen eye on a specific slice of our innovation projects. You'll make sure all the data in our systems—things like project status, budgets, and timelines—is accurate and up-to-date. Honestly, your main job is to be the 'source of truth' for your assigned projects, making sure the Venture Board (our internal investment committee) gets reliable information to make their big 'kill, pivot, or persevere' decisions. Day-to-day, you'll be digging into our portfolio management tools, chatting with project leads, and pulling together reports. You'll sit right between the individual project teams and the senior leaders who need to understand the bigger picture. When you do this well, our leadership can trust the numbers, and we can quickly spot projects that are going off track or sucking up too many resources. If things go wrong here, we end up funding projects that should have been killed, wasting precious time and money, or worse, missing out on genuinely promising ideas because of bad data. The challenge? Getting accurate, timely information from busy project teams who'd rather be building than reporting. The reward? You'll get a ringside seat to how big, transformative ideas come to life (or sometimes, gracefully die) within a large organisation, learning how to manage risk and investment at scale. Plus, you'll become the go-to person for reliable data, which is pretty powerful. View
- Innovation Governance Coordinator The Innovation Governance Coordinator is really the engine room for our innovation process. You'll be the one making sure every idea, every project, and every review meeting happens when it should, and that everyone has the right information. Frankly, you're the glue that holds our innovation pipeline together, making sure we don't just talk about innovation but actually do it in a structured way. Day-to-day, you'll sit right at the heart of our innovation team, working closely with the intrapreneurs (our internal entrepreneurs) and the folks on the Innovation Committee. You're translating the big-picture governance framework into practical, actionable steps that project teams can follow. If you do your job well, our innovation process feels fair, transparent, and efficient. If you don't, well, things get messy, projects get delayed, and good ideas might even get lost in the shuffle. The challenge here is balancing the need for structure with the messy, often chaotic nature of new ideas. You've got to be firm but friendly. The reward? You'll get to see exciting new products and services come to life, knowing you played a crucial part in making sure they had a clear path to success. View
- Innovation Hub Manager The Innovation Hub Manager is here to turn raw ideas into validated learnings. You'll design, execute, and analyse experiments for new products, services, or business models, which directly impacts our ability to find new growth areas and stay ahead of the curve. You'll work at the intersection of our central innovation team and various business units, translating big-picture concepts into concrete tests that help us make smart decisions. When this role is done well, we quickly figure out what customers actually want and avoid wasting millions on ideas that won't fly. When it's not, we either miss out on opportunities or, worse, build things nobody needs. The challenge is navigating the corporate landscape to get your experiments off the ground, often with limited resources. The reward, though, is seeing your validated ideas start to gain traction and knowing you've helped shape the company's future. View
- Innovation Strategist The Innovation Strategist is responsible for taking a specific innovation project or workstream from its initial spark of an idea right through to proving (or disproving) its value. You'll be running experiments, gathering real-world feedback, and making sure we're learning as much as we can, as fast as we can. Day-to-day, you'll be working at the intersection of customer needs and business opportunity, translating vague ideas into concrete hypotheses and then designing the quickest, cheapest ways to test them. You'll work closely with Product, Engineering, and Marketing teams, pulling together the pieces needed to get an experiment off the ground. When you do this well, we quickly figure out which ideas are worth pursuing and which ones we should 'kill' early, saving us a lot of time and money. When it's not done well, we end up wasting resources on ideas that won't work, or worse, missing out on big opportunities. The challenge here is the constant ambiguity and the need to be comfortable with failure as a learning tool. The reward? Seeing a tiny experiment turn into something that could genuinely change the business. View
Level 5 jobs · 5
- Innovation Portfolio Manager The Innovation Portfolio Manager is here to make sure our innovation efforts aren't just a collection of cool ideas, but a coherent, value-generating engine for the company. You'll be the one looking at the whole spread of our innovation projects, from those small tweaks to our existing products right up to the really wild, disruptive stuff, and deciding where we should actually put our cash and people. It's about making sure we're not just busy, but busy with the right things that'll actually pay off down the line. Day-to-day, you'll be sitting at the intersection of our strategy team, finance, and the actual innovation teams. You'll translate high-level business goals into a clear innovation investment thesis, then make sure our project pipeline actually reflects that. If you do this well, we'll see real, measurable returns from our innovation budget, and our leadership will trust us to keep finding new growth. If you don't, we'll end up with a load of 'zombie projects' and a lot of wasted money. The tricky part is saying 'no' to passionate people and sometimes powerful executives, especially when their pet project doesn't quite fit the strategy. The reward? Seeing a truly impactful new product or service launch because you helped steer it through the maze, knowing you directly shaped the company's future. View
- Lead Design Thinking Facilitator The Lead Design Thinking Facilitator is here to make sure our most complex business challenges get tackled with a human-centred approach. You'll design and run high-stakes strategic workshops for our leadership teams, helping them cut through ambiguity and find real solutions. This means you're not just guiding conversations; you're architecting the very processes and methodologies that multiple project teams across the organisation will use to innovate. Your work sits right at the intersection of business strategy and user empathy. You'll translate big, messy problems into actionable design challenges, making sure that our innovation efforts are actually solving real customer needs and driving business value. When you do this well, our leadership makes better, faster decisions, and our innovation pipeline is full of promising, validated ideas. If you don't, we risk wasting time and money on solutions nobody wants, or worse, missing out on crucial market opportunities. Honestly, the challenge is dealing with a lot of ambiguity and getting strong personalities to agree on a path forward. The reward, though, is seeing your methods adopted widely and watching truly impactful new products or services come to life because of the groundwork you laid. View
- Lead Innovation Program Manager As our Lead Innovation Program Manager, you'll be running the show for a chunk of our innovation portfolio. This means moving ideas from that initial 'eureka!' moment through rigorous testing and, hopefully, into something that actually makes money for the business. You're not just managing projects; you're shaping how we build our future. You'll sit right at the heart of our new ventures team, bridging the gap between raw ideas and viable business opportunities, making sure we're not just dreaming big, but also building smart. When you do this well, we'll see a steady stream of genuinely promising new products and services hitting the market, giving us that crucial edge. If it's not done right, we'll end up with a graveyard of 'innovation theatre' and wasted budget, which, frankly, nobody wants. The tricky part is balancing the wild, creative energy of new ideas with the cold, hard realities of commercial viability and corporate politics. The reward, though? You'll get to see your work transform our business, creating entirely new revenue streams and solving real customer problems in ways nobody else has thought of. View
- Lead Innovation Strategist The Lead Innovation Strategist is responsible for designing and refining the entire system we use to manage ideas, from a spark of inspiration to a viable project. You'll be the one making sure our innovation funnel actually works, not just in theory, but in practice. This means you'll spend your time figuring out the best ways to collect, evaluate, and push forward the ideas that truly matter, making sure they get the support they need to grow. You'll work at the intersection of our innovation team and the wider business units, translating strategic goals into practical innovation challenges and helping teams navigate the often-messy journey of bringing new things to life. When this role is done well, we see a steady flow of high-quality, relevant ideas moving through our pipeline, leading to tangible new products, services, or efficiencies. When it's not, we end up with 'innovation theatre'—lots of activity but no real impact, and good ideas getting lost in the shuffle. The challenge is balancing the need for structure and process with the inherent chaos and unpredictability of innovation. You'll deal with a lot of 'not invented here' syndrome and the politics of 'pet projects'. The reward is seeing your frameworks enable genuine change, helping employees feel heard, and ultimately, contributing to the company's future growth. View
- Manager, Innovation Portfolio As our Manager, Innovation Portfolio, you'll be the one making sure our innovation efforts actually go somewhere. You're not just coming up with ideas; you're building the machine that turns those ideas into real products or services for the business. This means you'll be leading a team of clever folks, setting up the right processes, and making some tough calls on what we back and what we bin. You'll sit squarely between the big strategic thinkers and the teams doing the actual building, translating grand visions into actionable programmes and then making sure they deliver. Frankly, if this role is done well, we'll see genuine new revenue streams or significant efficiencies from our innovation bets. If it's not, we'll end up with a lot of 'innovation theatre' – flashy projects that don't really move the needle. The tricky part is balancing the need for quick wins with the long-term, often uncertain, nature of true innovation. The reward, though? Seeing your team's hard work launch something truly new and impactful for the company. View
Level 7 jobs · 3
- Director of Corporate Innovation The Director of Corporate Innovation is here to make sure our big bets pay off. You'll set the innovation agenda for a specific business unit, translating the overall company vision into concrete, actionable innovation programmes. This means building new capabilities, identifying market-shaping opportunities, and, frankly, killing projects that aren't working before they become 'zombie projects'. When you do this well, you're directly contributing to our long-term growth and market position. If you don't, we risk falling behind competitors, missing critical market shifts, and wasting millions on initiatives that go nowhere. It's a high-stakes game, but the reward is seeing your strategic vision become commercial reality. View
- Director of Innovation The Director of Innovation isn't just a fancy title; you're here to genuinely shape how a specific business unit—let's say, 'Retail Banking' or 'Digital Health'—finds and builds its future. You'll be the one making sure our innovation efforts actually move the needle, not just create 'innovation theatre'. This means translating big corporate goals into a practical, repeatable way of finding new growth. Day-to-day, you'll be balancing the need for bold, transformational ideas with the reality of getting things done inside a big company. You'll be the bridge between visionary concepts and concrete business outcomes, making sure we’re not just experimenting for the sake of it. If you get this right, you'll see new revenue streams, better customer experiences, and a more agile business unit. If you get it wrong, well, we'll be playing catch-up with the market, and that's not a good look. The tricky part? You're often asking people to take risks on unproven ideas, which goes against every instinct in an established business. The reward, though, is seeing your strategic vision come to life, genuinely changing how we serve our customers and grow the business. View
- Director, Global Innovation Portfolio The Director, Global Innovation Portfolio, is responsible for setting the overall investment strategy for our entire innovation pipeline, ensuring we're betting on the right ideas to secure our future. You'll own the global corporate innovation portfolio, making sure it’s balanced across short-term wins and long-term, transformative plays. Frankly, you're the one who decides where our innovation capital goes, and that means you'll be the primary interface to the C-suite Venture Board, defending your choices and sometimes delivering tough news. This role sits right at the intersection of long-term vision and immediate commercial reality. You'll translate our company's strategic goals into a tangible portfolio of new ventures, making sure we're not just building cool stuff, but building things that will actually move the business forward in a big way. When you get this right, we open up completely new revenue streams and stay ahead of the curve. If you get it wrong, we could miss the next big market shift, or worse, pour millions into ideas that go nowhere. The real challenge here is constantly fighting for the future, often against internal resistance and short-term financial pressures. You'll need to be incredibly persuasive and resilient. The reward, though? You'll literally be shaping the company's next decade, seeing your strategic bets turn into real businesses that change how we operate and serve our customers. It's a heavy responsibility, but incredibly satisfying. View
Level 8 jobs · 3
- Chief Innovation Officer The Chief Innovation Officer sets the enterprise-wide innovation agenda, balancing growth from our core business with the need to create entirely new revenue streams. You'll be the architect of our future, driving strategic transformation across the organisation and ensuring we stay ahead of the curve. This role sits right at the top, reporting directly to the CEO and the Board, meaning your decisions directly influence our market position and shareholder value. When you get this right, we're not just reacting to market shifts; we're creating them, securing our long-term relevance and profitability. If it goes wrong, well, we risk becoming obsolete. The challenge? Navigating complex internal politics, securing significant investment for unproven ideas, and managing the inherent tension between stability and disruption. The reward, though, is seeing your vision come to life and truly defining the next chapter for the company. View
- Chief Innovation Officer (CINO) The Chief Innovation Officer is here to ensure we don't just survive, but truly thrive in a constantly changing world. You'll be the person looking beyond the next quarter, identifying macro trends, and translating them into tangible, multi-year growth strategies for the entire enterprise. This means building a robust pipeline of new products, services, and business models that will drive significant revenue in 3-5 years' time. You're essentially our internal venture capitalist, but with the added complexity of navigating a large, established organisation. When this role is done well, we'll have a clear path to sustained growth, new market leadership, and a culture that embraces change rather than fears it. When it's not, we risk becoming irrelevant, watching competitors eat our lunch. The challenge is balancing short-term demands with long-term vision, all while managing significant internal and external resistance. The reward? Seeing your strategic foresight transform the company and secure its future for decades to come. Honestly, it's a legacy-building role. View
- Chief Venture Officer As our Chief Venture Officer, you'll define and execute the overarching corporate innovation and venture strategy, making sure it aligns perfectly with our long-term business goals. Day-to-day, this means you're acting as the bridge between our current business and future opportunities, constantly scanning the horizon for disruptive technologies and new business models. You'll lead a team that identifies, invests in, and incubates ventures, both external and internal, that can become our next big thing. You'll sit right at the top, reporting into the CEO and regularly presenting to the Board. Your work is at the intersection of corporate strategy, R&D, and external market dynamics, translating those big-picture market shifts into actionable venture investments and robust internal incubation programmes. Honestly, you're the one making sure we're not just reacting to change, but actively creating it. When this role is done well, we'll secure future growth, defend against market disruption, and create entirely new, significant revenue streams. When it's not, we risk stagnation, missing crucial market shifts, and ultimately losing our competitive edge. The challenge? Balancing the immediate, short-term pressures of a large corporation with the long-term, often speculative, bets required for true innovation. The reward, though? You get to shape the very future of our company, building entirely new businesses and influencing the direction of our entire industry. View