Senior Innovation Consultant

Salary: £36,636 to £38,784 per annum with progression to £46,049 

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 15 October 2026

The Role

Thank you for your interest in joining the UK’s National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA).

Please note this is a Maternity cover post until November 2027.

The Senior Innovation Consultant is a key role at NICA. You will have a passion for, and proven experience of, delivering innovation projects to support businesses in harnessing new opportunities. 

You will be curious with a growth mindset and inspire others around you with fresh ideas and will have an understanding of and experience in applying human-centred design methods and processes in practice – ideally with older adults - and enjoy working in a collaborative, multidisciplinary team.

You will take responsibility for the successful delivery of projects and building and maintaining strong relationships with our clients. You will achieve this by drawing on your understanding and translation of signals and innovations from the overall market landscape, from your analytical skills, your excellent project management skills and working closely with our citizen’s insight network, Voice®, to gain a deep understanding of the needs, wants, desires and motivations. Translating these insights into engaging, high-quality outputs for client delivery.

Our mission is to create a world in which we all live better, for longer. We work with innovation and commercialisation experts, industry, academics, research and technology organisations and citizens, to develop solutions that enhance life as we age, promoting a positive impact on society at scale. You will find us at the heart of the Newcastle Helix development, in the award winning Catalyst building. To learn more about us and what we do click here.

The UK’s National Innovation Centre for Ageing at Newcastle University has been funded by Government and the University. We are committed to the professional career development of all our colleagues. You will benefit from a range of excellent development opportunities including internal and external training, access to specialist networking groups and opportunities to gain experience in the wider space of ageing longevity innovation and commercialisation. We provide a great range of benefits and discounts for all colleagues at Newcastle University, including the opportunity for 
blended working and flexible hours. You can learn more about what is available on our Benefits Website page.

To apply, please complete the online application and attach a CV and covering letter. In your covering letter please outline how you are either working towards, meet or exceed all of the requirements for this role and the essential criteria in the Knowledge, Skills and Experience section below. Provide examples and highlight expertise relevant to the role. Also provide a link to your portfolio of your work if available.

For informal enquiries, please contact beth.keys@newcastle.ac.uk

Key Accountabilities

• Lead on scoping and discovery sessions with clients understanding and/or addressing their business needs in the field of healthy longevity by selecting market signals and trends to help produce project proposals that provide clear and achievable deliverables
• Work with colleagues in Legal and Finance to ensure proposals are appropriately costed and contracted
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with our clients
• Act as the project lead, translating the brief, assigning team roles, planning the approach and building the design toolkit for each phase to successfully deliver on the project
• Line manage and support Innovation Consultants as part of your delivery team
• Lead on trend scouting and market landscape analysis, identifying emerging signals, innovations and shifts in consumer, societal and technological behaviours, and translating these into relevant opportunities and implications for ageing and longevity
• Carry out and supervise desk and AI-based research and analysis, drawing on a wide range of resources
• Manage a portfolio of projects, providing effective project and budget management against key metrics and milestones
• Ensure projects are delivered to cost
• Communicate regularly with clients on progress, acting as the main point of contact
• Facilitate and moderate interviews, workshops and panels to gather citizen insights that communicate the wants, needs and desires of potential users
• Produce detailed outputs, reports and case studies that collate information from a variety of sources and present key findings
• Lead on project reviews, analysing lessons learned and ensuring they are applied to future projects
• Provide content for marketing and communications staff in the preparation of media and press releases
• Contribute to and help further develop our processes and methodologies
• Be curious and become an expert in the areas of ageing, longevity, innovation and commercialisation
• Any other duties as specified commensurate with the grade 

The Person 

Please provide examples and make it clear in your cover letter, CV how you meet the following criteria. Provide a link to your portfolio of your work if available.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience 

• Experience of trend scouting, market landscape, innovation scenarios
• Experience working with and building strong relationships with commercial clients
• Experience of leading discovery sessions with clients to translate their needs and help produce project proposals with clear, achievable deliverables
• Proven experience of leading a multidisciplinary, creative team to deliver engaging, high-quality outputs
• Excellent planning, organisational and project management skills with the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously
• Experience of applying human-centred design methods and processes in practice – ideally with older adults - through a variety of design methods such as interviews, workshops and citizen panels
• Experience of presenting to a wide variety of audiences, both in person and remotely
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Proven experience of a range of IT programmes, especially Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite
• Experience in using LLM, SLM, Agentic AI and proficient in effect prompt writing
• Willingness to travel nationally and internationally, if required
  

Desirable

• Previous experience of working and delivering in an exceptionally dynamic advisory type environment
• Experience or understanding of the opportunities and challenges of working in healthy ageing and longevity
  
• Experience of conducting trend analysis and developing future forecasts
• Experience of running prototype and product testing with end users
  
• Experience working with both qualitative and quantitative survey software, video software and graphic design tools to translate data into compelling insights that tell a story

Attributes and Behaviour

Projecting confidence:

• Projects a positive attitude through personal confidence and enthusiasm to achieve organisational success. Inspires the trust and confidence of others.

Planning and organising:

• Manages time and resources by prioritising and organising effectively. Monitors and controls the workflow of the team. 

Finds solutions:

• Draws on experience and creative thinking to generate a range of viable options and decide on the most appropriate course of action to problem-solve and achieve objectives. 

Seeks inspiration:

• Seeks out fresh ideas and emerging innovations from a wide range of sources to build knowledge and inspire others
• Connects the dots and understands the implications for ageing and longevity

Teamworking:

• Works collaboratively with others, plays a positive role in teams and establishes and grows relationships across the organisation where different skills, expertise and opinions are valued

Qualifications

• Educated to degree standard in an innovation, design, social sciences, trend forecasting or technology discipline and/or significant work experience
  

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 29809