Project Associate

About the role

Are you passionate about the need to retrofit the nation's homes to achieve health, energy and social justice outcomes, improving lives and tackling the climate crisis? As Project Associate you will support the delivery and development of research, engagement and policy projects at the National Retrofit Hub. You will organise and manage inter-connected projects, collaborating across our network.

We are committed to creating inclusive working environments. This is a remote and flexible role. You will have the opportunity to work with a small but experienced team who are passionate about personal development and creating equal opportunities.

Title: Project Associate
Employment: Fixed Term Contract (until 31st December 2025, with the potential to extend)
Hours: Full time, 40 hours per week, with the opportunity to work flexibly.
Reports into: NRH Co-directors
Salary range: £30,000 - £35,000 per year, depending on experience
Closing date: 28th April 2025

About the National Retrofit Hub 

The National Retrofit Hub is a nonprofit organisation that brings together all those involved in the retrofit sector to share their expertise and work together to enable the local delivery at scale.

The National Retrofit Hub convenes six working groups, led by working group chairs, and with collectively over 700 participants, each tackling a different element of the retrofit picture. These working groups play a fundamental role in realising the potential of our network: convening retrofit stakeholders, building and distilling evidence, and delivering actionable insights to address known barriers to good quality retrofit at scale.

We also take part in action research and collaborative projects. Our new Project Associate will support the delivery of projects such as:

Retrofit Connect: Community groups are already engaging in retrofit, demonstrating the invaluable role they play in building trust, engaging citizens and designing inclusive, holistic retrofit projects. However, these groups are under-resourced and under-supported. This project learns from and supports community organisations, with advice, capacity building activities, and facilitating peer support networks. Working alongside collaborators such as Footwork, Civic Square and We Can Make, we are seeking to rapidly develop, test, and evaluate solutions to the challenges faced by community groups.

RetroNetZero: A collaborative project, led by the BRE, which aims to support and promote retrofit innovation. Currently, the regulatory environment for Net-Zero innovation is challenging: with unclear requirements and pathways, slow to evolve standards that don’t always fit new innovation, costly approvals and testing, and fragmented capabilities to create evidence that can change regulation. Our intervention will use ‘Regulatory Science’ to help smooth the process, this might include the collection and analysis of data and evidence to support regulatory decisions, the development of tools, standards and pathways through regulation, and more. You can read more about the project here.

Measuring Outcomes & Impact Evaluation: The benefits of a good quality retrofit go far beyond cost and carbon savings, and include improvements to indoor air quality, thermal comfort, reduced risk of damp and mould, improved building maintenance and climate resilience. Currently most retrofit projects and schemes target a narrow range of outcomes, and those are rarely measured or evaluated accurately. This project will conduct research and future visioning to enable holistic outcomes delivery across retrofit projects.

About the role

Our new Project Associate will:

• Support the delivery of research and collaborative projects: attending meetings, creating connections, distilling insights and driving ongoing project development and delivery.
• Produce key materials: written and visual articles, reports and resources.
• Report project progress to NRH Co-Directors, in line with our monitoring and evaluation framework.
• Plan and support leading events, roundtables and workshops: online, face-to-face and hybrid.
• Provide delivery and development support to our working group chairs, assisting in the facilitation of meetings, and the identification of discrete of outputs to achieve their identified objectives.
• Manage the delivery of the outputs identified and led by the working groups, providing technical support to groups, assisting in producing and reviewing content produced for sharing externally.
• Monitor the delivery of outputs and report back to the NRH Co-Directors on progress, challenges and opportunities.
• Identify regular opportunities for sharable moments and potential to demonstrate added value to our advisory panel, board and wider network, working alongside our Marketing and Communications team.
• Coordinate cross-project activities and help to identify synergies between working groups.
• Ensure effective quality assurance, promoting both internal consistency and external quality and coherence of outputs.
• Work with the NRH Directors to apply for and secure funding for discrete identified work packages.

About you

We are looking for someone who is inspired by the potential for retrofit to improve lives, and drive social justice outcomes. The ideal candidate would be excited to work on multiple project and strands, and have the skill to make connections and think systemically. We are keen for a wide range of individuals to apply for this role in terms of professional experience or background. Although, initially, this role is a fixed term contract, we are looking for someone who has the potential to learn, develop and flourish with us.

Essential qualities we are looking for from applicants include: 

• The ability to work collaboratively, as part of a group with a wide variety of members or stakeholder, and also independently.
• Experience working within project teams, and knowledge of techniques for planning and monitoring projects or programmes.
• Excellent problem solver with the ability to see inter-connected and related issues holistically.
• Great interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to hold and make key relationships for the NRH.
• Experience managing time and resources to achieve project goals.