---
title: 'Lead Market Researcher at Referrals Only'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/lead-market-researcher-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-83qyn2ncq2qk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-14'
---

# Lead Market Researcher at Referrals Only

- **Company:** Referrals Only
- **Location:** Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-08-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-14
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/monzoreferrals/jobs/8152579

## Job description

📍London (Hybrid) / UK Remote | 💰 £90,000 - £120,000 + Incentive Awards tied to your performance +[Benefits](https://monzo.com/careers#benefits)

⭐About the team

Monzo is expanding beyond the UK to make money work for all Europeans. Our Next Markets team is focused on understanding where and how we can build a successful business in new markets.

We work across Research, Strategy, Product, Data, Design and Marketing to make some of Monzo’s most consequential expansion decisions about our entry strategy: where the strongest opportunities lie and how our proposition should evolve.

We’re looking for a Lead Market Researcher to own the customer and market evidence that sit at the heart of these decisions. This is an opportunity to set research direction for new-market entry, establish how we build confidence in unfamiliar markets, and influence our expansion strategy.

🔑You’ll play a key role by...

- Leading the research that shapes our entry strategy for new markets, starting with discovery across new EU markets
- Developing and evolving a repeatable market-entry research approach, prioritising the questions that matter most and balancing depth, speed and confidence
- Building a clear view of local money behaviours, banking expectations, customer needs, trust drivers and barriers to adoption
- Identifying, understanding and sizing priority customer audiences, partnering closely with Data, Strategy and Product
- Assessing how well Monzo’s current and near-term proposition fits local customer needs and market expectations
- Setting a high bar for evidence quality, triangulating across sources and challenging assumptions where the evidence does not support them
- Synthesising complex and sometimes conflicting evidence into clear recommendations, trade-offs and confidence levels, and use them to shape business, product and marketing decisions
- Choosing the right research approach for each question, combining hands-on research with AI, specialist expertise and agency support where these add value

🤩 We’d love to hear from you if…

- Significant experience in customer research or consumer insight, with a track record of shaping strategy and business outcomes
- Experience tackling ambiguous, early-stage problems such as market entry, proposition development, innovation or audience strategy
- Experience conducting research across multiple markets and navigating meaningful cultural and market differences
- Strong quantitative research skills, including segmentation and audience sizing
- Strong methodological judgement - ability to choose the right approach for the question and recognise when specialist qualitative or other expertise is needed
- Ability to connect customer insight to product, proposition, brand, marketing, commercial and go-to-market decisions
- Strong synthesis and communication skills, turning complex research and data into clear narratives, recommendations and trade-offs
- Confidence influencing and constructively challenging senior cross-functional stakeholders
- Strong judgement in fast-moving environments, including knowing when deeper research is needed and when directional evidence is enough

🙌 What’s in it for you

💰 £90,000 - £120,000 ➕ Incentive Awards tied to your performance.

✈️ We’ll help you relocate to the UK.

✅ We can sponsor your visa.

📍This role can be based in our London office, but we're open to distributed working within the UK (with ad hoc meetings in London)

⏰ We offer flexible working hours and trust you to work enough hours to do your job well, and at times that suit you and your team.

📚 £1,000 learning budget each year to use on books, training courses and conferences.

🏡 We will set you up to work from home; all employees are given Macbooks and for fully remote workers we will provide extra support for your work-from-home setup.

➕ Plus lots more! [Read our full list of benefits](https://monzo.com/careers/).

🌈 The application journey has 3 key steps

- Call with recruiter (30 mins)
- Research Methods interview (1 hour)
- Teamwork and Impact + Values and Leadership interviews (1.5 hours in total)

This process should take around 3-4 weeks - your schedule is really important to us, so we promise to be as flexible as possible!

We have some guidelines on using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ace an application and interview at Monzo. [You can read them here.](https://monzo.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-on-using-ai-to-ace-an-interview-at-monzo)

#LI-LG1  #LI-Remote

## About Referrals Only

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Marqeta is the world’s first modern card issuing platform, providing open APIs that enable businesses to create, manage, and scale customized payment card programs.
- **Entity Type**: Public (Ticker: MQ on NASDAQ)
- **Headquarters**: Oakland, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2010
- **Founders**: Jason Gardner (Founder & Executive Chairman)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Financial Technology (Fintech) — Modern Card Issuing & Payment Solutions
- **Target customers**: B2B; serves a wide range of industries including digital banking, on-demand delivery, buy now, pay later, expense management, retail, and workforce payments. Customers include Square, DoorDash, and other high-growth fintech and enterprise companies.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To simplify payments and enable any company to deliver delightful payment experiences natively, powering more flexible, engaging, and innovative payment products.

## Products & Services
- **Modern Card Issuing Platform (SaaS/API)**: Fully open API platform that allows developers to launch new credit and debit card programs with speed, flexibility, and scale. Supports instant wage access, embedded finance, and custom card products.
- **Compliance & Risk Management (Service)**: Integrated fraud detection, spend control, and compliance tools to ensure high levels of security and uptime.
- **Global Expansion Capabilities (Platform)**: Certified to operate in over 40 countries across the US, Europe, and Asia, enabling businesses to scale globally.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: As a public company, market cap fluctuates. As of mid-2026, Marqeta is a publicly traded company valued in the multi-billion dollar range (exact figure varies with market conditions).
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue — $383 billion+ in total volume processed in 2025; 80x volume growth since 2017; 99.99% platform uptime in 2025.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Key customers include Square (Block), DoorDash, and other leading fintech and enterprise firms. Partners include issuing banks, networks (e.g., Visa, Mastercard), and card fulfillment providers.
- **Growth Signals**: Recognized as a CNBC Disruptor (top 50 in 2021 award); consistent expansion into new geographies (EU, UK, Asia); continued hiring across multiple departments and regions (US, Canada, UK).

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover & category leader**: Marqeta defined the modern card issuing category with its open API platform, giving it a decade-plus head start over competitors.
- **Scalability & reliability**: Proven track record of 99.99% uptime and handling massive transaction volumes (80x growth since 2017) — critical for enterprise customers.
- **Deep integration with major networks**: Pre-existing relationships with Visa, Mastercard, and issuing banks shorten time-to-market for customers.
- **Developer-first approach**: Open APIs and developer tools make it easy for engineering teams to build custom payment experiences quickly.

## Strategic Focus
- **Global expansion**: Continuing to expand its certified operations into new countries (currently 40+) to serve multinational customers.
- **Embedded finance & new use cases**: Driving adoption in instant wage access, embedded finance, and enterprise expense management.
- **AI & automation**: Investing in AI-powered fraud detection, risk management, and product automation (e.g., hiring for Principal Security Engineer, Product & AI; Lead Product Manager, Enterprise AI & Automation).
- **Platform stability & security**: Maintaining industry-leading uptime and security compliance as core differentiators.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & values**: Marqeta emphasizes a culture of “Simplify and Innovate,” “Solve for the Customer,” “Do What’s Right,” “Make it Count,” and “Win as a Team.” Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) include BlackCard, HOLA, RepresentAsian, Desi, MQ-Proud, Vets@MQ, Women’s Group, Parents’ Group, and Marqetaglots.
- **Remote/hybrid policy**: Many roles are remote (US, Canada, UK), with some positions based in Oakland, CA or London, UK. The company supports flexible work arrangements.
- **Notable perks & engineering culture**: Fast-paced, purpose-driven environment; strong focus on developer experience and open APIs; opportunities to work on cutting-edge payment infrastructure at massive scale. The company invests heavily in early career talent and internal mobility.
- **Award-winning workplace**: Recognized as a top workplace (e.g., CNBC Disruptor) and offers a collaborative, inclusive environment.

## Sources
1. [Marqeta About Us](https://www.marqeta.com/company/about-us)
2. [Marqeta Careers Page](https://www.marqeta.com/company/careers)
3. [Marqeta Homepage](https://www.marqeta.com/)
4. [Greenhouse Job Board](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/marqeta)
5. [MQ Referrals Job Board](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/mqreferrals/jobs/7743043)

## Other roles at Referrals Only

- [Data Science Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/data-science-manager-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-qy9svbyf8q50) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Product Manager, Subscriptions](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-subscriptions-referrals-only-barcelona-0jkx6zdsjnj7) — Barcelona, Spain
- [Fraud Compliance Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/fraud-compliance-manager-referrals-only-united-kingdom-qpzb7bmcbgxt) — United Kingdom
- [Fraud Investigator, Overnight Team](https://feeny.ai/job/fraud-investigator-overnight-team-referrals-only-united-kingdom-weayv59k72r1) — United Kingdom
- [Chief of Staff, Group CFO](https://feeny.ai/job/chief-of-staff-group-cfo-referrals-only-london-fg8xem42f7fh) — London, United Kingdom
- [Senior Product Manager - Growth](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-manager-growth-referrals-only-london-x8w3pax4qj7r) — London, United Kingdom
- [Director of Product Design](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-product-design-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-8ca0hy3vyc09) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Staff Backend Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-backend-engineer-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-6w1n8z0gktm9) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Senior Backend Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-backend-engineer-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-0weyav3xnjw9) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom
- [Backend Engineer III](https://feeny.ai/job/backend-engineer-iii-referrals-only-cardiff-london-or-awnc2afx215n) — Cardiff London OR, United Kingdom