The posting
Salary: £46,000 to £51,000 per annum
Closing Date: Tuesday 3rd November 2026
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Reports to: Programme Director
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 works flexibly across all the tools in our delivery kit – from grants and innovation pilots to research, partnerships, and commercial interventions. Our growing portfolio includes flagship projects tackling challenges such as inclusive EV charging infrastructure, complex community transport needs, and large-scale research and systems change activity through the National Centre for Accessible Transport (ncat).
We are recruiting a Funding Manager to oversee this grant, ensuring effective delivery, governance, impact and alignment with the Foundation’s strategy and disabled people’s needs.
Similar roles may be titled Programme Manager, Funding Manager or Evidence Centre Manager.
What you will be doing:
- Act as the Foundation’s principal day-to-day contact for ncat, coordinating engagement with its Chief Executive, senior leadership team, consortium and delivery partners.
- Oversee performance against the funding agreement, agreed outcomes, milestones, deliverables, and budget.
- Review performance and financial information, monitor key risks coordinating approvals and changes.
- Maintain clear roles, responsibilities and ways of working between the Foundation and ncat.
- Prepare concise updates and recommendations for senior leaders and committees.
- Ensure that ncat’s programme remains aligned with the Foundation’s strategy, the needs and experiences of disabled people, and relevant developments in transport policy, industry, research and innovation.
- Work with ncat and the Foundation’s Insight and Evaluation teams to agree meaningful measures of progress and impact, support independent evaluation and ensure learning informs future delivery and the wider portfolio.
- Collaborate across the Foundation, including with Finance, Legal, Communications, Insight and Evaluation, HR and Data Protection, to support robust decisions and high-quality delivery.
- Contribute to related Transport Solutions projects or funding activity where this supports the wider team priorities.
Your experience:
Must haves:
- Experience managing a major, multi-year grant, contract, programme or partnership in a complex environment.
- Experience managing a key external partner, consortium or grantee relationship.
- Strong understanding of programme delivery, funder oversight, governance and reporting.
- Experience monitoring outcomes, milestones, budgets and contractual performance.
- Ability to manage strategic, delivery, financial, governance and reputational risks.
- Strong stakeholder, communication and organisational skills, including constructive challenge and clear record-keeping.
- Understanding of inclusive practice and the social model of disability, with a commitment to lived experience informing decisions.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, including reports and presentations for senior audiences.
Nice to haves:
- Experience of cross-sector accessible transport research or systems change, including translating evidence into policy or practice.
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.
While we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role, we welcome applications from candidates who already hold a valid right to work in the UK. Candidates with an existing visa may be considered, subject to the type and conditions of their visa.
