Data and Insights Manager

University Academy 92; Manchester; On-site; GBP 37,000 - 42,000; Full time

Job summary

UA92 is seeking a Data and Insights Manager to lead the institutional approach to student data, reporting, and dashboards. You will focus on continuation, completion, progression, and student success, translating complex datasets into actionable insight for colleagues and senior leaders.

You’ll oversee statutory returns, quality assurance of data, and collaborate with Registry and academic/professional services teams to shape a data-driven academic environment at UA92 in Manchester.

Qualifications

• Experience in Higher or Further Education data planning or related role.
• Strong understanding of regulatory reporting requirements (HESA/OfS).
• Ability to manage student data systems and large datasets.

Responsibilities

• Turn complex higher education data into meaningful insight for colleagues and senior leaders.
• Develop reporting and Power BI dashboards for academic and professional services teams.
• Support statutory returns and ensure data quality with Lancaster University and regulatory bodies.

Skills

Power BI

Excel

Data analysis

Regulatory reporting

Education

Degree in Computer Science / Data Analysis

Master’s qualification welcomed

Tools

XML data handling

Power BI dashboards

Job description

Data and Insights Manager

At UA92, we’re deliberately different.

Co-founded by the Class of ’92 and Lancaster University, UA92 was created to challenge what higher education can look like. We’re built around widening participation, social mobility, and allowing students from all backgrounds to succeed not simply in accessing higher education, but in thriving within it and beyond it.

To do that well, we need to understand our students, our academic performance and where we can make the biggest difference.

We’re looking for a Data and Insights Manager who can turn complex higher education data into meaningful insight helping colleagues understand performance, strengthen student outcomes and make better-informed academic and institutional decisions.

The Role

Sitting within Registry and working closely with academic and professional services colleagues, this is a key role at the heart of how UA92 understands and uses its student data.

You’ll lead our institutional approach to student data and reporting, with a particular focus on the measures that matter across higher education – continuation, completion, progression, student success and academic performance.

You’ll interrogate the data behind those measures, identify patterns and trends and translate them into clear insight for colleagues and senior leaders. Whether looking at performance across teaching blocks, student demographics, attendance, enrolment or progression, you’ll help us move beyond reporting what has happened to understand what it means and where we should focus next.

There’s also an important regulatory dimension. Working closely with Lancaster University, you’ll oversee the preparation and quality assurance of student data supporting statutory and regulatory returns, including HESA, OfS, HESES, Student Finance and UKVI.

As UA92 continues to develop, you’ll help shape our student systems roadmap and build our capability to independently manage statutory returns. You’ll also develop reporting and Power BI dashboards that put useful, accessible information into the hands of academic and professional services teams.

What You’ll Bring

You’ll already understand the higher education data landscape and the responsibility that comes with managing institutional student data.

Experience working within Higher or Further Education in data, planning or a related role is essential, alongside a strong understanding of the regulatory environment and statutory reporting requirements, particularly HESA and OfS.

You’ll be confident working with student record systems and large, complex datasets, with the technical ability to analyse, manipulate and visualise information using tools such as Excel and Power BI. Experience of statutory returns and transferring data into XML or equivalent formats will also be important.

You’ll need to be curious about what the data is telling us and confident enough to ask the next question. You’ll be able to take complex information and turn it into something meaningful for different audiences from academic colleagues exploring student outcomes to senior leaders making institutional decisions.

You’ll be educated to degree level, or bring equivalent professional qualifications or relevant experience within Computer Science, Data Analysis or a related area. A relevant Master’s qualification would be welcomed but isn’t essential.

Above all, you’ll share our belief that data has its greatest value when we use it to make things better for our students.

The Particulars

Role: Data and Insights Manager
Salary: £37,000 – £42,000
Contract: Permanent, Full Time
Hours: 37.5 hours per week
Reporting to: Registrar
Location: UA92, Manchester

At UA92, you’ll join a university that is still growing, still evolving and still prepared to question how things have always been done.

If you understand HE data, care about student outcomes and want the opportunity to shape how a developing institution uses evidence to drive academic performance and student success, we’d love to hear from you.

Come and help us turn data into decisions that make a difference.

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

UA92 is committed to building a diverse and inclusive community where everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. We actively encourage applications from individuals from underrepresented backgrounds and those with non-traditional career paths. Additionally, we welcome candidates who have an understanding of inclusion.

Applicants must have the right to work in the UK. UA92 cannot sponsor visas for this role