The word of 2025 was, depending on your dictionary of choice: parasocial, rage-baiting, vibe-coding or slop.  Which word you see as the break-through might depend on your age, too. For my 12-year-old son it would be ‘slop’ and potentially rage-baiting (I got accused of this the other day – the cheek).

In the research and insight sector, the word might, blandly, be ‘AI’. Perhaps ‘uncertain’, or ‘tough’. It’s a delicate balance to be honest about the challenges today (which reflect wider macro-economic, geopolitical and technology factors) and find the optimism to power on. I’m determined to face 2026 with fresh energy and different language. The word I keep coming back to is ‘reinvention’. Sometimes our hand is forced in this change, and sometimes it’s more proactive and fully by choice. 

The cold reality, in this month of long nights, frosty days and post-holidays comedown, is that there are many people looking for new opportunities, and there will likely be plenty more job-seekers across the year.

The natural instinct, and the safe bet, might be to look for another similar role, freelancing or contracting opportunity. For many, this might well be fruitful, but hard times can present the impetus we might not have realised we needed to take a step back, re-evaluate and take a different route. Reinvention doesn’t have to be radically different. It can be a sideways step within the same sector, or even within the same role. 

For inspiration on what this can look like, I spoke to a few people within and adjacent to research and insights about how they made their career changes.

Being true to yourself

Anniki Sommerville reached board director level at Flamingo prior to making a shift into a varied career including freelancing, stints agency-side, comedy, podcasting and writing. While she keeps her hand in the research world, in the past 18 months she’s made a more concerted shift into journalism and now writes for The I Paper and Good Housekeeping.   

She talks about seeing the ‘AI train’ coming, and experiencing an intensification of timelines that she found problematic: “I had 20 years’ experience but it’s all about speed, and you feel that your experience isn’t that useful any more”. She found that “I was in qual in a place of fear and uncertainty, with my inner voice saying ‘this isn’t you any more’”. 

Making a career pivot wasn’t a fast process, she notes – and it’s been ‘very curvy’, partly due to re-engaging with research periodically, largely for clients that she loves but also for financial reasons. She’s honest about the challenges, such as losing the security of a senior agency-side income, but for her the advantages outweigh the downsides.

Sommerville speaks positively about a central outcome from this career shift: the potential to embody herself.  She says: “For decades, I worked in corporate environments where I had to sit on my personality. Now, when I go and meet people, I’m fully myself. And because I am authentic and doing what I love, I do feel that the success will come.”

The right culture

Sinead Jefferies is the past chair of MRS and currently senior vice-president, professional services at Zappi. Previously, she held a range of senior roles in research agencies and has freelanced as well as running a training consultancy.  She notes that work that allows you to bring your whole self is more expected now: “Younger researchers talk about the importance of purpose and the value of what they do; I think that’s become more prevalent now. The idea of what’s giving you satisfaction was never something I thought about in earlier stages.”

Jefferies explains that setting up Vela, her consultancy on remote working skills and systems, was fuelled both by a drive to avoid being one of many freelancers competing for a smaller amount of work, and by the confidence that she had something useful and distinctive that she could offer.

She adds that “when you can work out what lights you up, it helps you centre yourself” in your career. Through her consultancy work, she became attuned to the myriad factors that differentiate agency cultures, and what mattered to her. Then when she was hoping to move back to a role that allowed her to be part of a team, she started with considering the kind of culture she wanted to be part of.

Prior to interviewing with Zappi, Jefferies considered where she found joy in work, and where she did not, thereby fuelling the motivation to make a step-change. She describes how in the early days, her role was daunting due to so much of it being a completely new world and there being a steep learning curve, but she held on to her confidence that she had something to bring to the company.

It’s clear that such a gear-shift brought Jefferies significant energy: “I loved the feeling that I was in my late 40s, really senior in my career, but doing something completely new. I absolutely relished that.”

It’s never too late

Sue Frost is now in her 60s and continues to work directly with clients on strategic insight projects. She’s recently contracted agency-side and has set up a training consultancy, upskilling researchers in qual.  She’s been able to plot significant changes in the sector over the years, and has become aware of aspects that have both intensified and weakened post-Covid.

Frost has empathy for the context researchers are operating in today, and describes a landscape broadly marked by less patience, amplified pressure and more fear and anxiety than in the past. She believes that those who wish to remain in research will benefit from remembering what is great about the work we are privileged to do, and finding ways to tap into their passion for it.

Frost talks about the energy it takes to thrive in our “wonderful sector, which should be cherished”, and how  it will take both commitment and adaptability for any individual to retain their place, giving the metaphor of a boat that needs to constantly change its sails to catch the wind, and ultimately reach its destination.

The happy accident

A career shift doesn’t always come from careful engineering.  Sometimes, serendipity makes change happen. Grant Feller was a journalist and 10 years ago, decided to find a way to use his skills in business. Instinctively, he sought to avoid the well-trodden paths of PR and copywriting, and find a distinctive space.

He says: “I became very interested in the way people were talking about storytelling without seeming to know what it meant, or how to do it. I did a search on marketing, advertising and media leaders who were talking about it.” His story shows the value of being bold, once the possibility of a new route has started to reveal itself – he carefully researched a couple of leaders in research who were talking about storytelling, and sent cold emails designed to intrigue them. His consultancy Every Rung has been going from strength to strength since.

To those seeking to make a sideways step into a new sector, he advises: “Be open to new experiences, be prepared to take risks, don’t just embrace failure but expect it because it will make you better. Say ‘yes’ to everything that is asked of you or every piece of work you’re given, even if you think it is beneath you.”

He also recommends a considered analysis of gaps in the market, suggesting a two-pronged approach: “Figure out what it is that you love about your job and then what it is that you’re really good at. Hopefully there is some crossover there. Now, focus your energies on being better at them.”  Then analyse how to translate those skills into something new: “At the same time, find a niche. Not just a niche – a niche of a niche.”  He also recognises that while having a career plan might work for some, it’s OK not to – because the odds are we’ll all need to make frequent shifts.

Across discussions, the common theme is leaning into what makes each of us happy (or at least satisfied) and where we have the strongest skills. It’s also about recognising that sometimes it’s about fit between us and our roles and companies more than it’s about changing who we are and what we do.

Reinvention doesn’t have to be radical – it can be incremental and nuanced. But whatever it looks like, in today’s working world, it feels like it’s an imperative to be prepared to adapt.