About The Role
Foundry is Simplyhealth’s venture incubator and strategic business development unit, investing millions into new healthcare businesses to accelerate the shift towards predictive and preventative care. We work at the intersection of healthcare, technology and financial services — identifying new opportunities, validating them quickly, and scaling what works.
We’re looking for a User Researcher to lead research across multiple early‑stage healthcare ventures. This is a high‑impact, hands‑on role where research is central to decision‑making. You won’t be handing over insights and moving on — you’ll see your work directly shape whether new business ideas are proven, pivoted or stopped altogether.
Reporting to the Head of Foundry, you’ll work embedded within small, multidisciplinary product squads, partnering closely with product managers, designers and engineers. You’ll lead research end‑to‑end, from generative discovery through to evaluative testing, helping teams move quickly while staying grounded in genuine user needs.
This role sits at the heart of Foundry’s validation process. You’ll often be working as the sole researcher across ventures, bringing clarity to ambiguous problem spaces and ensuring that user insight informs both product decisions and commercial thinking. Healthcare and financial services are complex, regulated environments, and your work will help navigate these constraints without compromising on user value.
Success in this role comes from curiosity, confidence and pragmatism — knowing when to go deep, when to move fast, and how to bring user voices powerfully into senior decision‑making.
About You
This role will suit an experienced researcher who enjoys working at the front end of innovation. You’re likely to bring:
1. Experience leading end‑to‑end research on early‑stage products or new propositions
2. A strong grounding in qualitative research methods, with confidence designing and running generative and evaluative studies
3. Experience using surveys and mixed methods to validate insights at scale
4. Comfort working as a sole researcher while collaborating closely within product teams
5. Experience managing participant recruitment, including working with external agencies when needed
6. A solid understanding of research ethics and consent, particularly in sensitive or regulated domains
7. Confidence presenting findings directly to senior and executive stakeholders
8. Experience working in healthcare, fintech or other regulated environments is helpful, but not essential
9. Above all, you’ll be evidence‑driven, outcome‑focused and motivated by seeing research translate directly into better decisions and better products.