Head of Labs in Bristol

At Grant Thornton we do things differently - looking to the future, driving ambitious growth and pioneering positive change in our industry. Providing audit, tax and advisory services, we empower clients through strategic insight, curiosity, and genuine partnership. And we empower our people with real opportunity, an inclusive culture and work life balance.

Grant Thornton UK LLP is part of a global network of independent audit, tax and advisory firms, made up of some 58,000 people in over 135 countries. We're a team of independent thinkers who put quality, inclusion and integrity first. All around the world we bring a different experience to our clients. A better experience. One that delivers the expertise they need in a way that goes beyond. Personal, proactive, and agile.

GT Labs is Grant Thornton UK’s research and AI innovation function. We exist to capture and validate ideas at the edge of current practice — in the territory where normal product cycles can’t reach, where innovations are too discontinuous to trust without research-grade scrutiny, and where the signals arriving from outside the firm aren’t yet legible through conventional analysis.

We run three loops: capturing and validating bleeding-edge innovations from the coalface of practice; scanning the horizon for signals that should inform the firm’s strategic bets; and placing patient research bets against the firm’s hardest analytical problems. We have proven the model in audit. The task now is to expand that capability and credibility across all three service lines.

GT Labs is a pre-product, pre-discovery function. We don’t build — we research, validate, and hand off with confidence to the firm’s product and engineering capability. Our value is in getting to a clean answer before anyone picks up a tool.

We’re happy to talk flexible working and consider reduced hours and job shares, we’ll support you to balance your work and life.

This is a research leadership role, not a research role. The Lab Lead sets up and runs the service line research labs — owning the research portfolio, maintaining research quality, protecting researchers’ time, and driving the applied research programmes that demonstrate the lab’s value across audit, tax, and advisory.

You’ll report to the Director of Labs reporting into the Chief Digital Officer. You’ll deputise for Director of Labs and represent the lab to senior stakeholders across the firm as the function grows.

GT Labs is an early-stage function. We’re building something that doesn’t yet exist except nascently, and we want someone who will pitch in to help establish it on a mature footing — with real craft and conviction about what a high-performing research function looks like. For the right person, this is a compelling opportunity to potentially grow into a future digital leader in the firm.

The research agenda spans all three service lines. Expanding the capability and credibility we have built in audit into tax and advisory is central to this role through applied commission delivery, visible research outputs, and substantive engagement with practitioners in each service line.

As a Head of Labs within our team, you will:

• Build and lead the service line labs
• Set up the research labs across audit, tax, and advisory on a mature, high-performing footing
• Own the research portfolio — prioritising, progressing, and closing down what doesn’t work as decisively as you advance what does
• Own research quality across the portfolio: setting standards, reviewing outputs, and ensuring the lab’s findings can be trusted before they exit to product and engineering
• Oversee research programme managers leading research teams, shielding researchers from everything that isn’t research
• Manage milestone reviews across the blue-sky portfolio, holding a portfolio posture rather than evaluating individual bets in isolation
• Drive applied research delivery
• Oversee applied research commissions — bespoke models and analytical frameworks for high-value engagements — delivered through programme managers and research teams
• Use applied delivery in tax and advisory to build appetite for the lab and demonstrate its value to service line leads
• Own the relationship with the firm’s Engineering and Product leads, building strong and trusting relationships and processes which allow the free flow of ideas in both directions
• Ensure research findings exit to product and engineering in a form that can be acted on
• Own senior stakeholder relationships
• Represent GT Labs to service line leads, methodology teams, colleagues across digital, and the firm’s digital leadership
• Ensure stakeholders understand what the lab is working on, why, and what they can expect — and manage expectations when timelines are uncertain
• Deputise for Director of Labs in various fora

Lead with intention on culture: building a team where we play, where psychological safety is real, experimentation is welcomed, and failure is treated as a learning opportunity. Create the conditions in which researchers can do their best work — protected time, clear priorities, and a management layer that absorbs complexity rather than passing it down. Champion an inclusive environment where people are trusted to work in the ways that work best for them and are encouraged to bring as much of themselves to work as they choose.

Joining us as a Head of Labs, the minimum criteria you’ll need is:

• Experience leading or managing a research, analytics, or advanced data science function — you understand what good research looks like and can assess and own quality without doing the work yourself
• A track record of communicating complex research and analytical work to senior stakeholders in a professional or regulated environment, with the credibility to land it
• A strong instinct for research quality management: you know how to set standards, review work, and hold a team to them
• The management instinct to absorb complexity upward and protect your team’s focus — you know the difference between a leadership problem and a researcher problem
• Credibility with senior practitioners across more than one discipline
• A clear point of view on what builds high-performance research teams — psychological safety, research culture, the conditions under which good work happens — and the experience to put it into practice
• The ambition and appetite to grow: this role comes with real opportunity for those who want to become future digital leaders in the firm

It would be great if you had some of the following skills, but don’t worry if you don’t tick every box, we’ll help you develop along the way:

• Familiarity with the kind of problems the lab works on — advanced data science, machine learning, or quantitative methods applied to high-stakes professional judgement — even if you’re not a domain expert yourself
• Experience building a function or team from an early stage, including the operational and cultural groundwork that mature functions take for granted
• You don’t need to be a researcher or data scientist. You need to understand what good research looks like, be able to manage a portfolio of it, own the quality, and know when to challenge and when to back your team.

Embracing uniqueness, the culture at Grant Thornton thrives on the contributions of all our people, we never settle for what is easy, we look beyond to deliver the right thing, for everyone. Building an inclusive culture, where we value difference and respect our colleagues helps our people to perform at the best of their ability and realise their potential.

Our open and accessible culture means you’ll interact with leaders who are interested in you and everything you bring to our firm. The things that set you apart, we value them. That’s why we give you the freedom to bring your whole self to work and pursue your passions inside and outside of work.

We’re also committed to supporting you through different life stages, with a range of family friendly and wider leave policies.

Life is more than work. The things you do, and the people you’re with outside of work matter, that’s why we’re happy to look at flexible working options for all our roles, and we’ll always do our best to keep your work and life in balance.

The impact you can make here will go far beyond your day job. From secondments, to fundraising for local charities, or investing in entrepreneurs in the developing world, you’ll be giving back to society. It’s that drive to do the right thing that runs through our every move, grounded in our firm’s values – purposefully driven, actively curious and candid but kind.

We’re looking for people who want to contribute, spark fresh ideas and go beyond expectations. People who want to be able to proudly do what’s right, for the firm, our clients, our people and themselves.