Associate Director - Qualitative

Marketing Management Analytics, Inc.; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days annual leave

Pension contribution

Income protection

Life assurance

Health & wellbeing benefits

Professional development opportunities

Job summary

Ipsos is seeking an Associate Director to lead cutting-edge qualitative research for global clients. You will guide innovative studies, drive strategic insights, and oversee multi-market programmes across diverse markets.

The role involves significant travel and leadership in client discussions, with a path toward Research Director. Join a renowned team delivering impactful research stories and value to major brands.

Qualifications

• Experience in qualitative market research with strong client management.
• Ability to lead projects using a blend of qualitative methodologies.
• Proven track record of designing research proposals and translating insights into actions.

Responsibilities

• Lead innovative and exploratory qualitative projects for global clients.
• Provide strategic leadership on multi-market and global programmes.
• Direct client discussions and deliver actionable research stories.
• Collaborate with the Ipsos Understanding Unlimited team to humanize data.

Skills

Qualitative research

Client management

Project leadership

AI-enabled methodologies

FMCG industry

Multi-market studies

Storytelling

MS Office

Tools

None

Job description

Are you a dynamic leader with a passion for qualitative research in the FMCG industry? Does innovation and complex decision-making excite you? Join us at Ipsos as an Associate Director to shape global insights. Ready for a career where your contributions make a global impact? Let's connect!

About the Role

As an Associate Director at Ipsos, you'll be at the forefront of cutting-edge research, leading innovative and exploratory projects for our key global clients. Joining our award-winning qualitative team, you will work on groundbreaking studies, providing strategic leadership on multi-market and global programmes. This role offers significant travel and immersion across various global markets, including Japan, Italy, and Sweden. It's a high-impact opportunity designed for growth, paving the way for career progression toward a Research Director role. Be prepared to lead client discussions, provide innovative solutions, and drive impactful research stories.

About You

Essential skills:

• - Enthusiastic about working in the FMCG space.
• - Interest in innovation, behaviour change, and AI-enabled research methodologies.
• - Proven track record in qualitative market research with excellent client management skills.
• - Comfortable leading projects with a blend of qualitative methodologies.
• - Microsoft Office Suite.
• - Strong organisational and time management abilities.
• - Excellent communication and storytelling skills.
• - Proven leadership in account management and project delivery.
• - Ability to design research proposals and translate research into actionable insights.
• - Experience in FMCG market research.
• - Demonstrated capability in AI and machine learning applications in research.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support you as an individual. Our standard benefits include 25 days annual leave, pension contribution, income protection and life assurance. In addition, there are a range health & wellbeing, financial benefits and professional development opportunities.

We have a hybrid approach to work and ask people to be in the office or with clients for 3 days per week.We appreciate you may have commitments outside of work and will consider flexible working applications - please highlight what you are looking for when you make your application.

We are committed to equality, treating people fairly, promoting a positive and inclusive working environment and ensuring we have diversity of people and views. We recognise that this is important for our business success - a more diverse workforce will enable us to better reflect and understand the world we research and ultimately deliver better research and insight to our clients. We are proud to be a member of the Disability Confident scheme, certified as a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer. We provide an inclusive and accessible recruitment process.

Your application will be reviewed by someone from our Talent Team who will be in touch either way to let you know the outcome.

About the Team

The Ipsos Understanding Unlimited service line uses Qualitative techniques to humanize data and bring cultural intelligence into our clients’ thinking. We bring ‘life to life’, through listening, observing and illuminating human interactions. Ipsos UU is the largest qualitative research company in the world. IUU has a community of 1300 specialists with diverse backgrounds and skill sets (e.g. ethnographers, community managers, semioticians) who understand people better than anyone else, simply because we have done more research for more clients in more countries than anyone else. With us, clients are fluent in 88 cultures.

About Us

Ipsos is one of the world’s largest research companies and currently the only one primarily managed by researchers, ranking as a #1 full-service research organization for four consecutive years. With over 75 different data-driven solutions, and presence in 90 markets, Ipsos brings together research, implementation, methodological, and subject-matter experts from around the world, combining thematic and technical experts to deliver top-quality research and insights. Simply speaking, we help the biggest companies solve some of their biggest problems, serving more than 5000 clients across the globe by providing research, data, and insights on their target markets. And we are proud of our continuous efforts in making Ipsos the best place to work!

Job Info

• Job Identification 9056
• Job Category Research
• Posting Date 07/17/2026, 05:23 PM
• Locations London, England, United Kingdom (Hybrid)