Our Retail Impact Fellow will work with UKRI, the Healthy Ageing Challenge and Stirling University to lead a programme of work to make better use of social science research evidence to help the business sector understand and act on their role in supporting healthy ageing.

• We want to support retailers to better understand the evidence about what healthy ageing means.
• We want to inspire action by retailers in relation to their role supporting healthy ageing.
• We want to transform how the retail sector sees and serves older consumers.

And we need your help to make this happen.

For our high streets to survive they are going to have to adapt to more older customers. But our high streets needn’t just survive – they can thrive.

• Across the G20, spending by older households exceeds the combined GDP of Japan, Australia, Canada, and Brazil.
• The combined spending power of Greater Manchester’s households aged 65+ is increasing by £280 million each year.
• ILC research shows that making Greater Manchester town centresmore accessible and appealing to older consumers could boost high street spending by more than £50 million each year.

Working with Universities, retailers and other businesses, charities and policymakers, the postholder will be tasked to drive change and deliver impact in the sectors engaged in town centre placemaking (for example, retail, transport, planning, design) around healthy ageing.

Retailers can play a role in tackling loneliness as well as helping the UK economy succeed. They certainly have a role in helping us all live more healthily.

The context is a challenging one. Across the UK and much of the world, high streets are struggling, and footfall is dropping. PWC found that in the first half of 2019, 1,234 more stores were closed than were opened. Diversity in retail is declining as we buy more from a smaller number of places. Meanwhile, online retail continues to squeeze the high street.

Yet there is a lot going on and plenty of opportunities to help deliver our ambitious plans.

• The UN and WHO are leading the Decade of Healthy Ageing;
• The Westminster Government has committed to supporting 5 years of extra “healthy years”;
• There are strong networks of Healthy places and Age Friendly Cities to build relationships with.

For the full job description and details of how to apply for this post, download the Retail Impact Fellow recruitment pack below. The deadline for applications is 9am on Friday 24 June 2022.

ILC Recruitment Pack – Retail Impact Fellow 2022