Policy Manager

About Martingale

Martingale Foundation exists to fund and support the next generation of talented researchers.

We believe that family income should not be a barrier to the pursuit of excellence, and our mission is to enable and nurture talented individuals from low‑socioeconomic backgrounds to thrive within world‑leading postgraduate research.

Martingale’s flagship programme: the Martingale Postgraduate Scholarship

Martingale’s flagship programme supports students from low‑socioeconomic backgrounds to pursue and excel in postgraduate degrees by providing:

• A fully‑funded Living Wage Scholarship to pursue a one‑year masters degree or a four‑year Ph D.
• All tuition fees and research expenses, including a tax‑free stipend for living costs.
• Tailored support to apply for Martingale courses at our partner universities.
• Access to Martingale programmes, including leadership training and connections with top academic and industry professionals.
• Membership of a pioneering community of talented researchers.
• About Purposeful Ventures

Martingale Foundation is incubated by Purposeful Ventures who provide operational and strategic support. The Policy Manager will be employed by Purposeful Ventures.

Our vision is a fairer society where all young people thrive.

Purposeful Ventures partners with social entrepreneurs and philanthropists to improve the education and well‑being of young people from their earliest years.

We define and diagnose the issues affecting children and young people, analyse evidence and explore the most promising solutions.

We then select, accelerate and, where we find a gap, incubate organisations that tackle those issues.

We offer more than just funding to our charitable organisations.

Our expertise, operational experience and networks enable us to deliver tailored, hands‑on support with a relentless commitment to system change.

About the role

In the four years since Martingale launched, we have now supported over 200 Scholars to undertake postgraduate degrees across our thirteen partner universities.

As Martingale grows, we are building our policy and advocacy function to shape the future of postgraduate access, affordability and outcomes.

We are seeking a rigorous, proactive and collaborative Policy Manager to drive the monitoring, insight and evaluation that underpin our influence, and to support the development and implementation of our policy positions and stakeholder engagement.

Reporting to the Head of Communications and External Engagement, you will lead Martingale’s policy tracking, political intelligence, evidence generation, and evaluation and learning.

You will turn a fast‑moving external landscape into clear, actionable insight, and produce the evidence, analysis and draft materials that enable the Head and CEO to position Martingale credibly with funders, universities, the sector and government.

This is a hands‑on, delivery‑focused role with significant autonomy.

You will own workstreams end‑to‑end, build systems and processes where they do not yet exist, and influence more senior colleagues and stakeholders.

You will sit at the centre of a landmark research and policy programme and help deliver a campaign to implement the recommendations from Martingale’s major HESA‑based research partnership, making the case that talent, not background, should determine who progresses to and thrives in postgraduate study.

Key Responsibilities

You will lead on monitoring and insight, and on evaluation and learning.

You will support the Head of Communications and External Engagement on policy position development; consultations, briefings and submissions; and policy and stakeholder engagement and convening.

• Monitoring and Insight
• Lead Martingale’s policy tracking and horizon scanning across legislative and regulatory developments, research funding policy, labour market and skills policy, and higher education sector developments relevant to postgraduate access, affordability and outcomes.
• Gather and synthesise political insights to anticipate risks and opportunities, briefing the Head and CEO on what is changing, why it matters to Martingale, and how we should respond.
• Lead the generation of evidence – coordinating, analysing and interpreting data and research (including Martingale’s HESA‑based research and partner analysis) to underpin our policy positions and external narrative.
• Build and maintain trackers, briefings and knowledge systems that make insights from across government and higher education accessible, timely and actionable across the team.
• Evaluation and Learning
• Lead the monitoring and evaluation of Martingale’s policy and advocacy activity, defining what success looks like and setting clear measures to track progress against our objectives.
• Establish and run learning cycles that capture what is and is not working, feeding insight back into strategy, planning and delivery.
• Own evaluation tools and reporting, ensuring activity is measured against clear objectives and that impact is demonstrable to colleagues, the Board and funders.
• Coordinate with the Programmes Team to leverage lessons and insights from our engagement with scholars to shape our policy work.
• Policy Position Development
• Support the Head in developing Martingale’s policy positions for both government and higher education stakeholders, translating evidence into clear, credible and mission‑aligned policy asks.
• Draft and refine policy content, ensuring positions are intellectually rigorous, well‑evidenced and consistent with Martingale’s voice and values.
• Consultations, Briefings and Submissions
• Draft consultation responses, briefings, submissions and other policy materials for the Head and CEO to own and represent in external forums.
• Coordinate inputs across the team and with partners to deliver high‑quality, accurate and timely products to deadline.
• Help ensure Martingale’s policy activity complies with charity law and Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity, escalating issues as appropriate.
• Policy and Stakeholder Engagement and Convening
• Manage the planning and delivery of Martingale’s stakeholder engagement, including roundtables and convenings.
• Maintain the stakeholder engagement register, tracking relationships, mapping sector and geographic coverage, and identifying gaps and opportunities.
• Build and steward day‑to‑day relationships with stakeholders across government, academia, research councils, funders, learned societies and partner organisations to advocate for our mission, escalating to the Head and CEO where appropriate.
• Ways of working
• Work closely with the Head of Communications and External Engagement, providing the monitoring, insight, evidence, drafting and evaluation that underpin Martingale’s external positioning and influence.
• Collaborate across the communications, partnerships and programme teams, and with delivery and research partners, creating shared understanding of priorities, timelines and dependencies.
• Manage resources and any project budgets responsibly and use evidence and learning to improve practice over time.
• Carry out any other duties as are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the role as requested by the line manager.
• Key Requirements

Experience and skills – Essential

• Demonstrable experience in policy, public affairs, research or analysis, ideally within a mission‑driven organisation.
• Strong understanding of the UK education, social mobility and/or research funding landscape, including the roles of bodies and organisations such as UKRI, Universities UK, Department for Education and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
• Excellent research and analytical skills, with the ability to synthesise complex policy and evidence into clear, accessible insight.
• Outstanding written communication, with the ability to produce high‑quality briefings, consultation responses and policy materials for senior and external audiences.
• The ability to distil complex topics into compelling arguments for a range of audiences.
• Proven ability to own and deliver multiple workstreams to deadline, creating plans, systems and processes where they do not yet exist.
• Experience monitoring and evaluating activity and using evidence and learning to improve practice.
• Ability to build and manage relationships with external stakeholders, and to brief and influence more senior colleagues.
• Advanced IT proficiency: spreadsheets, word processing, CRM or databases such as Beacon, email, web‑based applications.

Experience and skills – Desirable

• Experience of horizon scanning, political monitoring or intelligence‑gathering.
• Familiarity with higher education or research organisations, and/or with postgraduate, doctoral or research‑focused study.
• Understanding of industrial strategy, labour market and skills policy.
• Familiarity with Charity Commission guidance on campaigning and political activity for charities.
• Experience delivering policy or research work in a startup or scale‑up environment.
• Personal Characteristics
• Excellent interpersonal skills: able to build rapport and trusting relationships, and to work co‑operatively in a multidisciplinary setting.
• A commitment to Martingale’s mission to support postgraduate students from low‑socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Comfortable working in a rapidly growing and changing organisation with a degree of ambiguity – confident to create processes and ways forward where they might not yet exist.
• Curious, rigorous and detail‑oriented, with sound judgement about what matters and why.
• Resourceful, able to act on initiative, hardworking, and systematic.
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