Project Director, Survey Research

ICF’s Survey Research Science and Operations Portfolio is home to a talented community of survey researchers building robust solutions for government (Federal, State, and Local), university and commercial clients. In support of our client’s research goals, we provide high quality, reliable, innovative, and transparent survey research services. 

ICF is seeking a Survey Project Director with a strong interest in survey methodology, survey management, and business development, to join our Survey Research Team. This position will have primary responsibility for directing a major, multi-year Federal survey program, providing both strategic and day-to-day leadership of the project. At least 50% of the position will be dedicated to this effort, with the remaining time supporting other survey research projects, staff development, and business development activities. 

The successful candidate will provide overall accountability for project performance, including client relationships, technical and methodological execution, staffing, schedule, financial performance, quality, risk management, subcontractor coordination, and delivery of high-quality products. The Project Director will lead multidisciplinary and cross-organizational teams and work closely with senior technical staff, survey methodologists, data collection and data management teams, corporate support functions, and external partners.

For more information about the Survey Research team and our work, please visit: https://www.icf.com/work/research-evaluation 

This position can be fully remote or hybrid from one of our many ICF office locations.

What you’ll do:

• Provide overall leadership and accountability for a large, complex Federal survey research program, dedicating at least 50% of your time to its successful execution. 

• Serve as the primary point of accountability for the project, with responsibility for scope, schedule, budget, staffing, quality, risks, and deliverables. 

• Provide day-to-day leadership of a large, cross-matrixed project team that may include survey researchers, methodologists, statisticians, programmers, data managers, field operations staff, analysts, and subcontractors.

• Integrate the work of multiple technical and operational workstreams, ensuring dependencies are identified and resolved and that the project functions as a cohesive program.

• Build and maintain a strong relationship with clients, serving as a senior point of contact, managing expectations and anticipating client needs.

• Develop and maintain project management processes, including work plans, schedules, staffing plans, budgets, risk registers, decision logs, and regular internal and client reporting. 

• Monitor project financial performance, including labor, subcontractor costs, revenue, margin, forecasts, and estimates to complete, and take corrective action when necessary. 

• Forecast staffing and level-of-effort needs and work with portfolio leadership and functional managers to secure the resources necessary to meet project requirements. 

• Direct subcontractors and teaming partners. 

• Provide technical and methodological leadership for complex multimode survey activities, including web, mail, telephone, app-based, and other emerging approaches to data collection. 

• Oversee development and implementation of project quality assurance and quality control protocols.

• Identify project risks and emerging issues early, facilitate decision-making, and develop and execute mitigation strategies. 

• Communicate project status, risks, financial performance, and key decisions to ICF leadership through established reporting processes. 

• Facilitate effective collaboration and decision-making across ICF business areas and corporate functions as needed to support successful project delivery. 

• Supervise and mentor project managers and other staff, providing clear expectations, feedback, coaching, and opportunities for professional development. 

• Contribute to the continued growth of ICF’s survey research portfolio through capture, solutioning, proposal development, technical writing, budgeting, and client engagement.

• Apply lessons learned and innovations from major projects to strengthen ICF’s broader survey research capabilities, methods, tools, and management practices. 

What you must have:

• Master’s degree in a social science, survey research, public policy, statistics, or related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience. 

• 10+ years of progressively responsible experience managing complex survey research, data collection, research, or evaluation projects, including experience with: 

• Directing large, multidisciplinary project teams. 

• Managing Federal government clients. 

• Managing complex project schedules and interdependent workstreams. 

• Developing and managing project budgets and forecasts. 

• Monitoring project financial performance. 

• Managing subcontractors and external partners. 

• Developing and implementing project quality assurance processes. 

• Identifying and mitigating project risks. 

• Delivering high-quality work products under demanding schedules. 

• Applied survey research and multimode data collection, including web, mail, and telephone modes. 

• Demonstrated experience serving in a senior project leadership role with overall accountability for project performance. 

• Demonstrated ability to translate contractual and technical requirements into actionable project plans and successfully lead teams through implementation. 

• Experience supporting capture and proposal development for Federal or other government research opportunities. 

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex technical and project-management issues clearly to clients and senior leaders.

Additional professional skills and experience preferred: 

• Experience with questionnaire development, cognitive testing, usability testing, or other survey instrument development activities.

• Experience writing and contributing to technical reports, research reports, executive summaries, methodological documentation, and other client-facing deliverables. 

• Experience leading qualitative research projects, including planning and overseeing focus groups, in-depth interviews, cognitive interviews, usability testing, or other qualitative data collection activities. 

• Experience conducting qualitative analysis, including coding, thematic analysis, synthesis of findings, and integration of qualitative and quantitative results. 

• Experience developing or contributing to data visualizations, interactive dashboards, or other data dissemination products, including tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or similar platforms.

• Experience developing and delivering presentations for clients, technical audiences, conferences, or other professional forums. 

• Experience preparing conference abstracts, posters, papers, manuscripts, or other research dissemination products.

• Experience overseeing, mentoring, and developing staff, including providing day-to-day guidance, coaching, performance feedback, and opportunities for professional growth.

• Fluency or professional proficiency in Spanish a plus.

Bot and Third-Party Applications

Please note that this application must be submitted directly by the applicant for consideration. Failure to do so may result in the application being excluded for consideration.  Applicants needing an accommodation for disability or religious purposes in connection with the application process should contact Candidateaccommodation@icf.com for assistance.

Working at ICF

Pay Range - There are multiple factors that are considered in determining final pay for a position, including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and competencies that align to the specified role, geographic location, education and certifications as well as contract provisions regarding labor categories that are specific to the position.

The pay range for this position based on full-time employment is: