Director of Equity Assurance - 0.5 to 0.6 FTE - 18 month fixed term contract (we have office lo[...]

Genomics England; London; Hybrid; GBP 200,000 +; Full time

Job summary

A leading health research organization in London seeks a Director of Equity Assurance. This role involves ensuring equitable access to genomic research and supporting community engagement efforts. The ideal candidate will have a relevant advanced degree and expertise in genetics or related fields. This position offers a salary starting from £101,500 and includes generous leave and flexible working arrangements.

Benefits

30 days' holiday plus bank holidays

Flexible working arrangements

Defined contribution pension

Individual learning budgets

Employee recognition programme

Subsidised gym membership

Qualifications

• A Master's degree in genomics or a health-related science is highly valued.
• PhD beneficial but not essential.
• Background in social research or biological sciences welcomed.

Responsibilities

• Advise on local community engagement approaches for large-scale recruitment programmes.
• Ensure equity considerations inform data generation strategies.
• Work alongside bioinformatics teams to improve equity of outcomes.

Job description

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Company Description

Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments - with patients and participants at the heart of it all.

Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

Job Purpose

The Director of Equity Assurance will provide championing and leadership for the importance of equity in enabling access to and benefits from genomic research. You will support Genomics England to find practical, sustainable and meaningful ways to live up to our commitment to embed equity in our research programmes, processes and decision-making, right across the lifecycle of research into healthcare and ensure we translate the learning and insights from the Diverse Data programme into how we work as we implement our strategy. This will include addressing issues of representativeness in genomic datasets from individuals of different genetic ancestries, so that we can drive towards ensuring everyone can benefit from genomic medicine.

You will provide early-stage advice and steer for how equity considerations should be built into the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of new research programmes and collaborations and advise on reporting, monitoring and standards that should be built into our research- and healthcare-facing Services and Programmes, to assure we are upholding our equity commitments.

We want you to bring your subject matter expertise to guide and advise approaches to community engagement and communication at a strategic level for Genomics England.

Job Description

• Advise on local community engagement approaches for large-scale recruitment programmes (e.g. the Generation Study, Adult Population Genomics Programme), with a focus on ensuring Genomics England can respond to different community needs over time.
• Ensure equity considerations inform data generation strategies, including partnerships with research cohorts, and selection of disease areas, so that efforts to enrich the National Genomics Research Library actively improve its representativeness of the UK population.
• Work alongside our bioinformatics teams to identify evidence areas where analytical pipeline performance varies across ancestral groups, and recommend approaches to improve equity of outcomes from variant analysis and interpretation.
• Provide support for Research Network learning, training and development to understand issues of diversity and representativeness pertinent to the NGRL, and how research users could address issues of equity in their research design, engagement and outputs.
• Provide support for increasing the breadth and diversity of Research Network membership, including for individuals from Low and Middle-Income Countries and research teams working on issues relating to health needs in under-served communities.
• Advise internal teams on developing cultural competencies and awareness relating to use of language in genomics for our external-facing content.
• Know and understand the meaning behind our virtues and leadership behaviours and embody them in all aspects of your role.

Qualifications

A Master's degree in genomics or a health-related science is highly valued and a PhD is beneficial for added credibility but not essential. We welcome candidates with backgrounds in social research or biological sciences.

Additional Information

Please note:

• We're not seeking an organisation-wide EDI strategy lead; instead, we're looking for someone who can bring a strong equity lens to their work within the context of our specific programme or research focus
• Due to the nature of the role and the skillset required, we would consider this role on a secondee basis and are happy to be flexible in the way this is undertaken.

Closing date for applications: 31st August 2025 at 23:59

Salary from: £101,500

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we're continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days' holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England's policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour is contrary to our virtues, undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.