Strategic Lead - Reach

Strategic Lead – Reach

• Contract type: Fixed term contract for 12 months
• Full time: 34.5 hours - we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours
• Location: Hybrid between home and one of our offices in the UK - London, Shipley or Glasgow
• Salary range: £77,000 - £85,000

About us

At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions.

Our organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.

About the role

At Macmillan, our ambition is clear: to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. Reach is one of our programmes to achieving this ambition; focusing on how our information and support services must be better connected, easier to navigate and more equitable—so we can reach everyone while focusing on people who need the most support.

We’re looking for a Strategic Lead – Reach, to shape and drive the strategic direction for this work. Grounded in insight, data and lived experience, you’ll turn long-term ambition into a clear approach that drives practical delivery and measurable improvements for people living with cancer. This is a senior strategic role for someone who can connect bold thinking with the choices, trade-offs and sequencing needed to make change happen.

What you’ll be doing

• Providing thought leadership on how people living with cancer interact with information and support services now and in the future, with a strong focus on equitable and accessible services.
• Leading the development of Reach’s strategy and approach to implementation, defining ambition, priority outcomes, choices, trade-offs and sequencing.
• Ensuring evidence about inequity, exclusion and underserved communities shapes Reach’s strategy and wider organisational learning.
• Championing inclusive and participatory approaches so people with lived experience play a meaningful and central role in shaping our work.
• Using insight, data and lived experience to identify gaps in outcomes, access, experience and engagement, and working across Macmillan to address them.
• Acting as a trusted strategic adviser to senior leaders, providing constructive challenge and aligning ambition with capacity, resources and delivery.
• Building influential relationships with commercial, public and third-sector partners to bring fresh thinking and opportunities to Reach.
• Working closely with the Strategic Programme Lead and delivery teams to translate strategic intent into practical action.
• Leading one direct report and a programme team of approximately 6–8 people, creating a safe, inclusive and high-performing environment.

Who we’re looking for

You’ll be an experienced strategy leader, comfortable operating with senior leaders and shaping direction across a complex organisation. We’re particularly interested in candidates with:

• Significant experience of developing and delivering strategy in a complex organisation, such as a charity, public-sector or health setting.
• A strong track record of using customer insight and intelligence to deliver tangible, equitable outcomes, particularly for people facing the worst outcomes.
• Extensive experience of customer-centred change and service design across digital and non-digital channels.
• The ability to bring together diverse perspectives and turn long-term ambition into practical implementation choices.
• Credibility and confidence working with senior leaders, Boards or Trustees.
• A clear understanding of how organisational culture, leadership and systems influence equitable outcomes for customers, communities and colleagues.
• Excellent strategic thinking, relationship-building and written and verbal communication skills.

In return, we offer a range of benefits including

• 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days
• Pension matched up to 7.5%
• 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications
• Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am-4pm
• Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more

Recruitment Process

• Application deadline: 23:59 on Wednesday 4th November
• Interview dates: First stage interviews will take place online on the week commencing 21st November (exact dates to be confirmed)
• To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed.

So we can support you to be your best during the application or interview process, please contact Macmillan TA Team TATeam@macmillan.org.uk for advice and reasonable adjustments

We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.