Social Impact Researcher

Stride Treglown is an employee-owned architectural practice and certified B Corp®.

Since 1953, we’ve been clear that great design requires a human approach, deep local knowledge, and specialist expertise—all backed by verified results. We’re now one of the UK’s largest architectural practices, with 300+ specialists in architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, master planning, town planning, building surveying, and graphic design.

Across 9 UK studios, we’re embedded in the communities we live and work, bringing imagination and flair to every project—with the technical proficiency to deliver what we design.

The opportunity We’re hiring a Social Impact Researcher to support our team and push towards evidence-based design across the practice. Our pipeline of work is varied and includes projects at a range of different scales, sectors and stages of development. This includes research collaborations such as ongoing academic-industry partnerships, our Impact Analysis workflow which analyses the social impact of our work with communities and embeds learnings into live projects, and our ongoing Inhabitant programme which tells the stories of people living and working in the places we have designed.

There is scope for the Social Impact Researcher to develop their own projects, and we’re looking for someone who is pro‑active, curious, confident to suggest new ideas and take initiative. The ideal candidate will be adept at designing and delivering socially engaged research projects, communicating with large multidisciplinary teams, and creating positive impact through built environment developments. Ideally, you would be based at our Bristol office, though we’re open to alternative Stride Treglown studio locations.

• Project management and delivery
• Build and maintain strong relationships with internal and external collaborators, including community stakeholders, to ensure sustained engagement and collaboration
• Oversee project budgets, ensuring financial responsibility
• Ensure that all projects adhere to inclusive, ethical and participatory practices
• Engagement
• Identify key community stakeholders, taking care to include voices which are often underrepresented in development processes
• Devise and implement engagement strategies
• Research
• Develop research design, including research questions, data collection methods and analysis plans
• Sensitively undertake interviews with communities with a range of different backgrounds and experiences, host focus group sessions, and facilitate creative workshops
• Review opportunities for knowledge and skills sharing with community groups and project partners as part of the research process
• Analysis
• Conduct and manage analysis to identify key themes, opportunities and challenges, leading to actionable insights
• Write up findings in accessible and compelling ways
• Visually communicate findings in accessible and compelling way
• Learning
• Work with internal teams to decipher learnings and apply feedback in practice
• Present learnings in internal and external settings through presentations, reports, workshops and events
• Collaborate with external partners to share learnings to diverse audiences
• Identify opportunities for improving our internal workflows and winning new work
• Represent Stride Treglown at external events
• Contribute to ongoing thought leadership through public-facing events, reports and articles

• Strong interest in the built environment, social impact, and sustainability
• Mixed‑method research experience, with particular emphasis on undertaking interviews
• Strong analytical and critical thinking skills
• Strong understanding of the ethics of community research and participatory processes
• Strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, enabling you to work with people with diverse backgrounds and experiences and build trust with community organisations
• Strong facilitation skills and ability to convene diverse groups
• Strong data analysis skills and ability to analyse qualitative data in a robust manner
• Strong storytelling skills and ability to write concise and visually compelling reports for varied audiences
• Experience managing research…