Job overview

The NHS Health Research Authority is recruiting a Senior Business Change Manager to play a leading role in a major national programme to deliver new digital services that simplify and accelerate research approvals across the UK.

This is an opportunity to shape how thousands of researchers, sponsors and partners experience research setup — improving speed, consistency and access.

This is a fixed term or secondment opportunity until April 2027.

The HRA is leading the transformation on behalf of our IRAS partners. As Senior Business Change Manager, you’ll lead the planning and delivery of business change to support the successful adoption of the new IRAS service. You’ll work across a complex stakeholder environment to ensure readiness, drive engagement, and embed change in practice.

You’ll be part of a cross-functional team working closely with our IRAS partners including representatives from Health and Care Research Wales, Chief Scientist Office (Scotland), and Health and Social Care Northern Ireland.  

Work flexibly across organisational boundaries, contributing to areas beyond your immediate remit to lead? Support joined-up delivery and transformation outcomes.

This is an opportunity to work at the heart of public sector digital transformation helping to ensure change lands well for the people and organisations who use our services.

Main duties of the job

1. Shape the roadmap for business change across transition states, aligned to delivery phases.
2. Lead communication and engagement across a complex and politically sensitive landscape, interpreting and explaining highly complex or contentious information to large and diverse audiences including senior national stakeholders, programme boards and cross-government groups.
3. Lead the organisational interpretation of emerging UK research legislation and government policy, ensuring business change requirements are identified early and incorporated into programme delivery.
4. Influence national partners and policy leads to align regulatory processes with service delivery objectives, shaping joint guidance, SOPs and implementation frameworks.
5. Translate programme goals into change outcomes for users, staff and partners.
6. Provide senior-level steer on readiness, adoption, and operational alignment.
7. Contribute to decision-making and prioritisation at programme board and transformation leadership forums.
8. Ensure benefits are defined, tracked and evaluated across implementation phases

Working for our organisation

Working at the HRA, we are reminded daily of how important life is. As a flexible working friendly organisation, we want to be sure that you can work in a way that is best for you, not just us and the work we do. 

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. We know from experience that different ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger, more creative workplace that helps us to deliver the best services. We welcome applications which represent the rich diversity of our community: age, disability, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation and other diverse characteristics, and we have policies in place to ensure that all applicants are treated fairly and consistently at every stage of the recruitment process. 

When applying to work here, speak to us about how we might be able to accommodate a flexible working arrangement – if it works for us, we will do our best to make it work for you. 

Please note, if applying to our Manchester, Nottingham or Bristol locations, we are only able to offer the role as home based.