Job Description

Salary: £45,000 to £50,000 per annum

2 vacancies available – 1x permanent, 1x fixed-term contract (12 months)

Hours: 37.5 hours per week, Monday to Friday

Reports to: Programme Director

Direct reports: Some roles will be required to manage a small team of Grants Managers.

Location: Harlow, Essex. Easily commutable from London Liverpool Street or Tottenham Hale Station. We offer a free minibus service to/from Harlow Town Train Station as well as free parking and EV charging on site.

Extra Information: Open to conversation on hybrid, flexible and compressed working arrangements.

About the role:

At the Motability Foundation, we fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose.

We’re building a Transport Solutions Team that can work flexibly across all the tools in our delivery kit – from grants and innovation pilots to research, partnerships, and commercial interventions. This includes a growing portfolio of projects tackling key challenges like inclusive EV charging, complex community transport funding opportunities, and large-scale research such as the National Centre for Accessible Transport.

We are now recruiting four Transport Solutions Managers to help design and deliver high-impact work across this portfolio. These are pivotal roles that combine subject expertise, delivery capability, and leadership and are designed to work flexibly across our matrix structure.

Some roles will focus more on funding: exploring new funding mechanisms and managing end-to-end development and delivery of funding opportunities and a team of grant managers. Others will focus more on direct delivery: leading projects, partnerships or research commissions. But all Transport Solutions Managers will be encouraged to develop and contribute across both areas.

We’re looking for people who bring either or both of these skillsets to the role and who are keen to grow their expertise across the range of tools we use. Whether your background is in grant-making, innovation, systems thinking, or programme delivery, we want to hear from you.

This is an opportunity to join a collaborative, purpose-led team driving change in the transport system for disabled people and to work on some of the most interesting and impactful projects in the sector.

What you will be doing:

• Lead the design and delivery of impactful projects or funding opportunities, working closely with Programme Directors and colleagues across the Transport Solutions Team.

• Manage end-to-end delivery of specific initiatives – this could include grants, pilots, commissioned projects, partnerships or other tools – ensuring they are well scoped and aligned to our strategic priorities.

• Use insight, evidence, and stakeholder engagement to shape the approach to new work, including scoping documents, funding criteria, business cases, and delivery plans.

• Work flexibly across our matrix team, contributing to projects or funding rounds outside your own portfolio as needed, and supporting colleagues with specialist input or delivery resource.

• Build and maintain relationships with external stakeholders, including charities, researchers, delivery partners and commercial organisations.

• Manage delivery, budgets, due diligence, risks and outcomes for projects or funding opportunities, ensuring appropriate governance and reporting is in place.

• Collaborate across teams including Impact & Evaluation, Finance, and Communications to ensure high-quality delivery, learning and visibility of our work.

• Bring and apply knowledge in key areas such as accessible transport, disability, inclusive innovation, grant-making or systems change.

• Support the development and continuous improvement of our delivery models, funding mechanisms and ways of working.

Your experience:

Must haves:

• Experience managing projects or funding opportunities from inception through to delivery, including planning, delivery, and monitoring, ideally across teams and with external partners or suppliers.

• Ability to scope and deliver initiatives or funding opportunities using evidence, insight, and engagement with disabled people and other key stakeholders.

• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple, complex workstreams to deadlines in a fast-paced and evolving environment.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across diverse stakeholder groups.

• Strong data and analysis skills, including the ability to synthesise qualitative and quantitative insight to inform decision-making and strategy.

• High IT literacy, including confident use of Microsoft Office (especially Excel and PowerPoint).

• A collaborative and flexible working style, with experience contributing to cross-team initiatives or matrix working.

Nice to haves:

• Understanding of disability and transport issues, such as the social model of disability, transport barriers, key legislation etc.

• Experience delivering or managing grant programmes, innovation pilots, research projects, or cross-sector partnerships.

• Familiarity with innovation or funding mechanisms such as challenge prizes, agile funding rounds, co-design, systems mapping, or commissioning frameworks.

• Experience of working in or alongside government, industry, or the not-for-profit sector.

• Experience supporting or line managing others in a team or project context.

If you’re interested in applying and excited about working with us but are unsure if you have the right skills and experience, we'd still encourage you to apply.

Benefits

Who are we?

We are building a future where all disabled people have the transport options to make the journeys they choose.

We fund, support, research and innovate so that all disabled people can make the journeys they choose. We oversee the Motability Scheme and provide grants to help people use it, providing access to transport to hundreds of thousands of people a year. We award grants to charities and organisations who provide different types of transport, or work towards making transport accessible. We also carry out ongoing research, in partnership with disabled people and key stakeholders in the industry, to inspire innovations that continue to champion accessible transport for all.

Why choose us?

We want working for the Motability Foundation to be the best career move you’ve ever made. When you join the Motability Foundation you will join a group of people who are supportive, innovative and motivated to improve the lives of our beneficiaries.

We value everyone’s unique qualities and celebrate having a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture where everyone feels safe to be their authentic selves. This is embedded into our values, Collaborative, Respectful and Evolving.

We bring our people together through our People Forum, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Forum, Social Squad and our Wellbeing Champions and our employee Spotlight Awards help us recognise the excellence and dedication of our staff.

We are proud to be recognised as Disability Confident Leader, have attained Platinum Level Award for Investors in People and are members of the Business Disability Forum.

A career with Motability Foundation can offer you so much more than earning potential, we pride ourselves in offering some fantastic benefits. Some of these include:

• 26 days annual leave, plus the option to buy/ sell up to five days.
• One wellbeing day for extra flexibility.
• Pension scheme - Up to 20%, including a 10% non-contributory contribution and matched contributions up to 5%.
• Life Assurance of four times your salary.
• Private healthcare through BUPA for you and your family, along with a Medicash Health Plan.
• Employee assistance programme: GP appointments, eye tests, flu vaccinations, sick pay and free gym and yoga sessions.
• Enhanced Parental Leave, including Adoption Pay.
• Free parking, EV charge points and a minibus service to/from the town centre and train station.
• Fresh fruit, breakfast snacks, and a Dress for Your Day dress code.
• Learning and development opportunities to help you grow.

Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, and we aim to be an employer of choice for candidates with disabilities.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we have committed to ensuring that disabled people and those with long term health conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential. We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to perform their best when interviewing and when working with us, so if you require any reasonable adjustments that would make you more comfortable, please let us know so that we can do our best to support you.

To help us create an inclusive workplace we are committed to offering to interview every disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria for the job. Some of our roles attract a high volume of applications and in some circumstances, we may need to limit the number of interviews offered to disabled and non-disabled candidates.