Market Research Executive

Horticultural Trades Association

Hours
35 hours per week

About the Organisation

This is a hugely exciting time for the sector and for the HTA. Gardens and managed green spaces and landscapes have never been more important to the UK for the economy, for the environment, and for the nation’s well-being. The HTA has 1,350 members, including garden retailers, growers, landscapers, and suppliers to the garden industry. The HTA lobbies and campaigns for its members within the horticulture industry and has an excellent reputation. We provide our members with the opportunity to learn, innovate, and network with others in the industry.

We have an effective political lobbying team working to enable the best conditions for our members to flourish across the UK, and our research and insights team provides impactful data to help our members run productive and resilient businesses. We have been running the National Garden Gift scheme since 1962.

These garden gift cards can be bought and redeemed at HTA Garden centre members' sites throughout the UK and can also be purchased online and in some supermarket gift card malls. It is the biggest garden gift card scheme in the country, locking in around £40 million of consumer spend to horticulture and our members’ businesses. 

Our culture is built on our values of being Member Focused, Collaborative & Inclusive, Trusted, and Innovative. We put our members at the heart of everything we do, ensuring their needs and aspirations guide our decisions and actions. We foster a collaborative and inclusive environment where every team member’s voice is valued, and diverse perspectives drive creativity and success. Trust is central to our relationships, both internally and externally, and we are committed to acting with integrity and transparency in all that we do.

We embrace innovation, continuously seeking new ways to improve and push boundaries, ensuring that we stay ahead of the curve in delivering exceptional service and results. If you’re looking for a workplace where these values are lived every day, and where you can make a real impact, we’d love you to have you join us. As an organisation, we are deeply committed to supporting and developing our team. We’ll give you the tools, mentoring, and opportunities you need to grow.

About the role

As Market Research Executive, you will be required to develop, design, and implement research studies, from working with stakeholders to define business and research objectives, through to designing data collection tools or conducting desk research, and debriefing or reporting insights that are applied to a business setting.

You will support our business benchmarking systems and produce research content and outputs for our member businesses or internal colleagues to support better business decision-making and help to raise the profile of the sector by supporting the HTA’s policy and media teams with data and evidence.

With a strong focus on delivering value for our members, this role will suit someone who wishes to make a real difference and has a strong customer-first focus.  This is an office-based role with hybrid working. There is an important need for regular in-person collaboration and visibility across our offices and with members.

Responsibilities

Specifying, Designing & Implementing Research Studies:

• Collaborate with colleagues and internal stakeholders to tease out business and research objectives
• With the support of the manager, determine the most appropriate research method to answer the objectives
• Produce research briefs for external suppliers that clearly and concisely convey business and research objectives and output requirements, conducting competitive reviews where appropriate
• Work with suppliers and external agencies to ensure research studies deliver on the objectives within agreed timescales
• Design questionnaires that deliver on objectives, and other data collection tools (discussion guides, stimulus materials, etc.) as required
• Query CRM to accurately generate sampling frames and mailing lists
• Design and contribute to effective communications that incentivise participation in our research, working collaboratively with colleagues across the association to maximise response rates and ensure communications are aligned with the rest of the business

Performing Data Analysis:

• Perform data quality checks to assess sample representativeness and validity
• Perform data cleaning where necessary, identifying any data inconsistencies and applying any appropriate corrections
• Perform numerical analyses, mining and/or modelling on HTA’s own and third-party data, including retail barcode-level transactions shared with the association by its members, CRM data, and government statistics, consumer attitudinal/behavioural measures and customer satisfaction metrics
• Identify data patterns, trends, segmentations and the ‘story’ within the data, to turn figures into actionable business insights and recommendations that deliver on objectives
• Perform qualitative analyses, accurately distilling written or spoken words into themes, ensuring any knowledge gaps are addressed by flagging to the manager/colleagues to allow for valid interpretations
• Critically evaluate the reliability and validity of results and conclusions

Monitoring & Reporting:

• Produce written reports that enable better business decision-making amongst members and describe the market to the media and external audiences, using a variety of HTA’s own data and third-party sources collated via desk research, including on the state of trade and consumer behaviour
• Monitor, track and report on metrics used internally to inform activity, including member satisfaction, member business outlook and overseas trade
• Monitor the team’s shared mailboxes to the agreed rotas across the team, promptly handling research enquiries, dealing with data cleansing flagged by auto-replies and/or flagging to the manager/the wider team for the best way to handle it.

Administration of Systems & Services:

• Support the provision of HTA’s business benchmarking studies for members, performing data quality checks and providing systems administration support, including liaising with third-party suppliers where necessary, to encourage improvement in the HTA and among its members
• Proactively seek out and progress retailer sign-ups to the HTA’s Garden Retail Monitor system, as divided between the team, liaising with the EPOS provider, setting up the retailer stores, and mapping the department hierarchy, creating the FTP folder, and ensuring a minimum of 2 years’ historical data is received, and future data flows in correctly
• Contribute to ensuring the Statsbank for internal use is maintained and kept up to date

Communicating, Promoting the work of the team:

• Work collaboratively with colleagues to ensure the above is effectively communicated to key staff and members through agreed annual plans, processes, and frameworks for member engagement led by the marketing team
• Produce content for HTA’s email newsletter to promote participation in or engagement with HTA market research
• Communicate with member-facing colleagues across the business to encourage participation in or engagement with HTA market research
• Work collaboratively with the marketing team to ensure the market research area of the HTA website is kept up to date
• To use and support colleagues and member businesses in using the research and insights produced by the team, following up to assess what use has been made of the analysis and recommending improvements to the manager
• With the support of the manager, represent the HTA on cross-company projects and presentation opportunities

Skills, Competencies, Experience & Attributes

Essential Qualifications, Experience & Skills:

• At least 3 years’ experience in a market/social research, and insights role
• Appreciation and understanding of good practice in designing research and data collection to support specified business or project needs
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong desk research skills with the ability to critique a source’s reliability and validity
• Proactive approach and strong problem-solving skills, including the ability to make assumptions using multiple data sources where there may be gaps in information or existing research
• Good team-worker, with a desire to work collaboratively as part of a wider team made up of staff with varying areas of expertise, and to support colleagues through insights and recommendations
• A questioning, curious nature to get to the bottom of a business issue/problem and find research-based solutions, with the ability to think critically and not take information presented at face value
• Ability to handle detail accurately, and where required, to perform data cleansing work to maintain the integrity of data sets
• Comfortable using Microsoft Office packages such as Outlook, PowerPoint and Excel

Desirable Qualifications, Experience & Skills:

• Experience in presenting research findings to non-specialist audiences
• Experience in working with data analysis packages such as Tableau and SPSS
• Experience working with professional survey packages such as SurveyMonkey and Voxco
• Market Research Society qualification
• Experience of qualitative research (depth interviewing, focus group moderation)
• Familiarity with digital analytics packages such as Google Analytics, Hotjar or Facebook Insights
• An understanding of the principles of benchmarking
• Interest in the role of trade associations or similar bodies in representing member interests to the government and the media
• Membership of a professional body such as the Market Research Society
• Experience of having worked in project environments such as Prince2 and SmartSheets
• Previous experience within the Horticulture industry
• An enthusiasm for gardens/gardening, the outdoor environment and contributing positively to it
• An enthusiasm for sustainability and the environment

Required Qualifications

• A degree-level qualification in a relevant discipline involving designing research tools, interpreting data sets and delivering insights, such as in the social sciences

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits
• Hybrid and flexible working options
• Generous holiday allowance (30 days + bank holidays)
• A supportive, inclusive working environment
• Professional development and career progression

Conditions of employment

• All applicants must have the right to work in the UK.

Working locations

• Chilton, United Kingdom

How to apply

• Please send your CV and a cover letter outlining your suitability for the role to: [email protected]. The application deadline is 5 pm on Tuesday, 24th March 2026.  Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so early applications are encouraged.

Policies

The HTA is committed to embedding diversity, equity and inclusion into our culture and our talent processes. We believe in creating a workplace where our people are treated with dignity and respect, a workplace free of barriers or discrimination. We will make accommodations upon request for candidates wherever needed and practical throughout the hiring process. This role is open to direct applicants only. No agencies, please.

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