Senior Research Manager (SRM)- Youth Justice in London

Contract: 13-month maternity cover (fixed term contract)

Location: Central London, hybrid

Closing date for applications: 9pm Monday 6th July

Interview dates: 22nd and 23rd July

About the Youth Endowment Fund: We’re here to prevent children and young people becoming involved in violence. We do this by finding out what works and building a movement to put this knowledge into practice. Violence continues to shape the lives of too many teenage children. In the past year, nearly one in five said they had been a victim, one in eight admitted to carrying out violence themselves, and half told us they had witnessed violence being committed against someone else. This violence takes many forms—from physical and sexual assault to robbery and threats with weapons. And the consequences are often severe. Nearly three in ten victims, equivalent to 5% of all teenage children in England and Wales, needed medical treatment from a doctor or a hospital. At the Youth Endowment Fund, we work to prevent this violence. To do this, we aim to build the evidence base on what works, and then use this to change policy and practice.

About the role: This role is a hugely exciting opportunity to change practice and policy in the Youth Justice sector. Using the vast body of evidence YEF has compiled (including four new research projects that are currently underway), the Senior Research Manager (SRM) for Youth Justice will spend the year writing two reports:

• A Practice Guidance Report (publishing in May 2027).
• A System Guidance Report (publishing in September 2027).

Practice Guidance Report: The Practice Guidance Report will provide 5-8 evidence-based recommendations on how individual Youth Justice Services can prevent children’s involvement in violence. It will be similar in style and approach to previous YEF Practice Guidance in other sectors (such as the education practice guidance, and youth sector practice guidance report). It will likely recommend a range of evidence-based strategies including:

• The importance of commissioning evidence-based interventions (detailed in the YEF Toolkit)
• How to meet the health needs of children in the Youth Justice System.
• How to respond to serious violence and weapons carrying.
• How to support the sentencing process.
• How to support children in and after custody.
• How to ensure effective diversion takes place.

The SRM for Youth Justice will lead the development and writing of these recommendations.

System Guidance Report: Targeted at policy makers and system leaders (including national government and the inspectorate) this guidance report will make 5-8 policy recommendations on how the Youth Justice sector can be reformed to better protect children from involvement in violence. While the practice guidance will focus on day-to-day changes that Youth Justice services can make, the system guidance will focus on how the system itself should be changed to make it easier for Youth Justice services to do ‘what works’. It will be similar in style to the education system guidance. It will likely recommend a range of evidence-based reforms, including:

• How to use funding, training and inspection to improve the provision of evidence-based interventions in the Youth Justice System.
• How to ensure that other agencies and sectors (such as health and education) effectively collaborate with Youth Justice Services.
• How to improve responses to the most vulnerable children and young people, and how to improve sentencing, custody and resettlement.

The SRM for Youth Justice will also lead the development and writing of these recommendations. Both guidance reports will include as a priority recommendations that will reduce the racial disproportionality currently evident in the Youth Justice System, and you will work closely with a Race Equity Advisor who will play a vital role as a critical friend. You will also be supported by a brilliant internal YEF Youth Justice Change Team (former Youth Justice practitioners who work within YEF to change practice and policy across the sector), in addition to external expert input from the leading sector experts. This will include liaising closely with the Ministry of Justice in producing both reports. You will also be able to draw from the practice and system guidance reports that YEF has already produced on diversion.

This role is a unique opportunity to change the Youth Justice System and YEF will invest significant resource in making the recommendations that you write happen. For instance, we published our Education System Guidance Report in May 2025. Three of the eight recommendations included in it have already been enacted. We intend to push for practice and system change at pace and will use the work you produce to do so.

The Senior Research Manager will be part of YEF’s Research team. The Research team is at the heart of our efforts to learn what works and put it into practice. We do this by developing the YEF’s funding strategy and creating free, highly accessible research summaries and actionable recommendations for policy makers, commissioners and practitioners. We’re a high-performing team which values intellectual rigour and getting to the truth, compassion for children, ambition about what we can achieve and humility about what we know. We love to discuss the latest developments in research methods, but we’re not just interested in research for its own sake. We want research to lead to actual changes in outcomes for children.

We’re especially interested to hear from applicants who have lived experience of youth violence. It’s also important to us that the people we hire do not discriminate. We believe in being inclusive and giving everyone an equal chance to succeed. Applications are welcome from all regardless of age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or socio-economic background.

Additional benefits include £1,000 professional development budget annually, 28 days annual leave plus.