Senior Foresight Analyst

Application Deadline: 30 January 2026

Department: Applied Foresight

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: The Future Laboratory London

Reporting To: Fiona Harkin

Compensation: £40,000 / year

Description

What will shape the future of discovery? What’s the value of culture to brands? How will AI change our world? These are the kinds of challenges our clients at The Future Laboratory expect us to prepare them for. We’re looking for a Senior Foresight Analyst who has a fresh view on these questions – one who is informed, a strategic thinker, commercially savvy and, above all, deeply curious.

This is an opportunity to join The Future Laboratory’s Foresight team, working predominantly on our industry-leading consumer insight and trends intelligence platform, LS:N Global. As a Senior Foresight Analyst you’ll be an experienced communicator, able to uncover new ideas and opportunities, distil and analyse them – and then communicate their relevance effectively to our clients.

This is not an entry level role. We’re looking for a new team member with at least 3-4 years’ experience working in – and proven knowledge of – the Branding & Marketing, Culture, Media & Entertainment, and Technology & Gaming sectors. Even if you don’t have direct experience in all of the above, you’ll be able to apply your analytical mind across multiple other sectors and have a keen interest in consumer behaviours - and the key challenges facing our clients now and in the future.

You’ll be working in a fast-paced environment as part of a dedicated team with varied skillsets, but all bringing a unique way of thinking to The Future Laboratory as we shape the business of consumer foresight and maintain our reputation for offering market leading insight, trends and expert viewpoints on our possible, potential and preferred futures.

You’ll work alongside your fellow Strategic Foresight Analyst, who leads our expertise on Luxury, Retail and Fashion, to build out our Consumer Engagement offer. At The Future Laboratory’s intelligence platform, we track the consumer journey by first understanding future mindsets and behaviours, then pinpointing the opportunities for new lifestyle products and services rising to meet these future consumer mindsets, and the innovative strategies engaging future consumers with these products and services.

Summary of company:

The Future Laboratory is one of the world’s most renowned futures consultancies.

We exist to help our clients make a better future happen for their businesses by providing them with the strategic foresight they need today to make secure decisions about their future prosperity. Our suite of products and services help clients to do three things:

Identify their needs and engage with their future customers or consumers
Build and future-proof brands
Identify and prioritise opportunities for innovating their products, services, experiences or work environment

The Future Laboratory is built on six core principles, or values, which define both the ethos of the business and the way we conduct ourselves as professionals: inspiring, enlightened, progressive, empowering, collaborative and fearless.

Key Responsibilities

: Source, research and write analysis for our consumer insight and trends intelligence platform LS:N Global to daily and weekly deadlines
: Be responsible for three sector specialisms – for this role we require a candidate with proven knowledge and experience of the Branding & Marketing, Culture & Media, Tech, Entertainment, Gaming and Digital Spaces sectors. This involves leading planning, researching and writing on these sectors and acting as an expert on them for the wider business
: Lead on one-two macrotrend reports per year, according to our Report Schedule which runs parallel to LS:N Global’s week-by-week analysis requirements, and which are offered on The Future Laboratory’s shop.
: Be a section editor for minimum of one section on the website, commissioning and editing all copy for that section
: Pitch stories for daily news reportage as well as longer form features including speculative scenarios and original series
: Arrange meetings with thought leaders/ industry experts
: Propose and report on industry events, as required
: Present at in-house TFL events as well as externally to clients
: Write compelling, rigorously researched analysis and report content
: Know, understand and refer to the four key questions of LS:N Global:

what’s new?
what’s next?
who’s doing this?
how is this affecting what consumers are thinking and doing now and in future, especially in relation to how they engage with brands?
Why does it matter to our subscribers/clients

: Work with a project manager to effectively manage your time and record accurately on time-sheets
: Work on client projects when needed from a trends, insights and analysis perspective
: Work on commissioning and expanding our global network of freelancers and contributors
: Contribute to the wider The Future Laboratory team knowledge at annual internal trends days presentations, understanding the work of our Applied Foresight and Strategy teams, and supporting our ‘One TFL’ approach to business.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

: Ability to lead, coach and mentor more junior members of the team
: An intuitive ability to identify and monitor global shifts in the lifestyle industries, from retail to branding, marketing and communications to innovation and design
: A good understanding of the value of Foresight for today’s businesses
: An excellent cross-sector thinker, with specific sector experience
: Excellent communication skills, with the ability to communicate ideas and information within the Foresight team, and externally to clients and contacts
: Natural ability to build and develop relationships, with a network of contacts in relevant sectors – both in PR and applied business
: Full of ideas and information, taking ownership of developing ideas from observation to execution, emphasising their implications for brands and consumers
: A strategic approach to stories. You should always be on the pulse and interested in what’s new and next across the lifestyle sectors – and why it matters to our clients
: Excellent desk research, field research and interviewing skills
: Ability to constructively incorporate feedback from editors, and actively turn challenging feedback into positive story outcomes
: Experience and interest in presenting
: Experience working with digital content and CMS
: Ability to multi-task and work across several projects simultaneously
: You may have worked at a respected editorial title or similar consultancy
: Ideally you will have a deep and wide network of contacts across the lifestyle industries

Benefits

From your first day at The Future Laboratory, you can expect to enjoy the following benefits:

: Flexible & hybrid working
: Socials
: Summer Fridays
: Christmas Break
: Matched employee pension contributions up to 5%
: Employee Assistance Programme
: Life Assurance
: Bereavement counselling

And after you pass your probation:

: Dental scheme
: Birthday leave
: Learning bursary
: Eye care
: Flu jabs
: Holiday purchase

Key Responsibilities

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

Benefits

About Future Laboratory