About the Health Foundation
The Health Foundation is an independent charitable organisation working to build a healthier UK.
Health is our most precious asset. Good health enables us to live happy, fulfilling lives, fuels our prosperity and helps build a stronger society. Yet good health remains out of reach for too many people in the UK, and health and care services are struggling to provide access to timely, high-quality care.
Our mission is to build a healthier UK by:
- putting health and inequalities at the heart of decision making
- shaping the future of the health and care system to ensure the best care for all
- building new approaches to testing innovation that could transform health and care.
We will achieve this by generating high-quality research and analysis; developing practical solutions to the biggest problems in health and health services; engaging, convening and building coalitions to build understanding, inform debate and drive action; and developing the long-term capability needed to transform health and care.
More about us
Our values
We expect everyone who works with us to be committed to our values and to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation. Our values are impact, evidence, integrity, and collaboration.
You can read more about them in our five-year strategy or in Our values and behaviours on our website. We also expect everyone to share our commitment to becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation and to help deliver our EDI Strategy.
About the role
As a graduate trainee, you will gain wide-ranging experience across the Health Foundation to obtain a thorough grounding in a respected organisation in the health and care charity sector. You will undertake project work as well as operational responsibilities.
Graduate trainees will undertake two placements in different directorates (Analysis, Communications, Corporate Services and Investments, Health and Care Policy and Research, Health and Inequalities) during the 12-month placement to gain an in-depth understanding of how each area works and to give you time to immerse yourself in tasks and projects in each team. This will also allow you to gain broad experience of the Health Foundation, explore your areas of interest and discover what it’s like to work in an independent charity. You will do this as part of a cohort of up to eight graduate trainees, receiving learning and development opportunities, detailed below, to support you throughout.
We will give you the training and support you need to get involved in the day-to-day delivery of our work and support longer-term projects. We will also aim to support you with any specialist skills or areas that you want to develop.
The responsibilities undertaken by the graduate trainees are expected to increase as the programme progresses. By the end of the programme, graduate trainees should be able to take on a substantive role, with the necessary skills to develop a career within the health and care sector, and wider charity and not-for-profit sectors.
Shortlisted candidates will have an opportunity to rank placements in order of their preference in the final stage of the recruitment process. For more information on the directorates you may be placed into, click here.
However, please note that while we endeavour to place graduate trainees in their preferred directorates, this is not always possible and there is no guarantee you will be allocated a particular placement. So, do please keep an open mind and remain flexible when applying and throughout the recruitment process.
Learning and development
Throughout the programme, graduate trainees will be offered numerous learning and development opportunities. These include:
- a mentor for the duration of the programme to provide support, and independent guidance.
- various networking opportunities.
- full access to LinkedIn Learning.
There will also be bespoke workshops as well as those open to all colleagues, covering:
- equity, diversity and inclusion
- getting the best from feedback
- understanding yourself and others
- successful mentoring
- CV, application and interview skills
- presentation skills
- writing skills.
About you
This is an entry-level role, and we are keen to hear from candidates with a range of different life and educational experiences. We do not need you to have studied a particular subject or achieved a certain grade for you to apply.
We are looking for:
- demonstrable curiosity and proactivity in one’s own development, with the ability to learn from successes and mistakes
- excellent team-working skills
- innovative thinking
- the ability to work flexibly, prioritise, organise and deliver work to achieve results
- strong verbal and numerical skills
- a passion and interest in the health and/or social care sectors
- candidates with the right to work in the UK at the time of appointment, as we do not provide visa sponsorship.
- willingness to embed our values and behaviours and support our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
