Lead Data Product Manager (Product Manager II)

UST; Leeds; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

UST is seeking a Lead Data Product Manager to shape enterprise data products across domains. You will own the product vision, roadmap, backlog prioritisation, and value realisation, collaborating with senior stakeholders, cross-functional teams, and vendor squads.

The role carries strategic influence and a mandate to achieve measurable business outcomes while ensuring long-term platform sustainability. The role requires leadership in roadmaps, prioritisation, and cross-squad delivery, with

Qualifications

• Proven ability to define data product outcomes and value.
• Experience translating business priorities into product roadmaps.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and senior client interaction.
• Ability to govern data products across domains and vendors.

Responsibilities

• Lead data product strategy, vision, and roadmap.
• Own backlog and sprint planning with cross-functional teams.
• Facilitate senior stakeholder forums and client reviews.
• Manage vendor-supplied squads and governance.
• Measure value with KPIs and ROI analyses.
• Influence data definitions, quality, and governance across products.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Product strategy

Roadmap leadership

Backlog leadership

KPI definition

Cross-functional delivery

Job description

Role Description

Location: West Yorkshire-Multiple locations (Hybrid- 3 days per week working onsite-Mandatory)

Immediate start

Permanent/ Fixed term contract

The Lead Data Product Manager is accountable for shaping, governing, and driving the success of enterprise data products across business domains. The role owns product vision, roadmap, backlog prioritisation, and value realisation, working closely with senior business stakeholders, cross functional delivery teams, and vendor supplied squads. This role operates with strategic authority, influencing product direction, delivery priorities, and operating ways of working, while ensuring measurable business outcomes and long term platform sustainability.

Scope of Responsibility

• Product strategy, vision, and roadmap
• Product backlog ownership and sprint planning
• Senior stakeholder and client product forums
• Cross squad dependency management
• Value measurement and monetisation strategy
• Oversight of vendor supplied delivery teams

Key Accountabilities

Product Leadership & Stakeholder Alignment

• Own and communicate the vision, value proposition, and strategic direction of data products across business and technology stakeholders.
• Act as the primary product interface for senior client and business stakeholders.
• Translate business priorities into clear product outcomes, capabilities, and delivery plans.
• Provide oversight and direction to vendor supplied squads, ensuring alignment to UST and client standards, ways of working, and value led delivery.

Roadmap, Backlog & Prioritisation

• Define and maintain a clear, outcome driven product roadmap balancing near term delivery with longer term strategic objectives.
• Own prioritisation decisions based on business value, feasibility, risk, and user impact.
• Ensure product backlogs are well structured, groomed, and aligned to agreed objectives and governance expectations.
• Identify and manage inter team dependencies to support predictable delivery and release planning.

Cross Functional Product Delivery

• Enable strong collaboration between data engineering, analytics, governance, architecture, and business teams.
• Ensure alignment on data definitions, quality expectations, and usage policies across all delivered data products.
• Lead discovery, requirements definition, and validation activities to ensure the product direction remains value focused.
• Drive shared understanding through structured documentation, product demos, and stakeholder communication.

Value Realisation & Measurement

• Define success measures and KPIs for data products, covering adoption, performance, and business impact.
• Track and report on realised value against agreed objectives.
• Partner with finance and business stakeholders on benefit tracking, ROI articulation, and cost benefit assessments.
• Ensure products contribute to strategic outcomes such as operational efficiency, decision making improvement, customer experience uplift, or revenue enablement.

Strategic Influence & Continuous Improvement

• Apply industry knowledge and market trends in data, AI, and digital product management to influence strategy and delivery approaches.
• Identify opportunities to improve scalability, usability, efficiency, and innovation across the data platform landscape.
• Champion continuous improvement, reduced complexity, and outcome based delivery.
• Support data literacy, responsible data usage, and self service analytics maturity across stakeholder groups.

Decision Rights & Authority

• Authority to define and evolve data product strategy and roadmap within the agreed engagement scope.
• Authority to prioritise backlog items and sequence delivery based on value and dependencies.
• Influence over delivery standards, operating cadence, and quality expectations for vendor supplied squads.
• Strategic advisor to client stakeholders on data product direction, investment focus, and future value opportunities.

Core Skills & Capabilities

• Senior stakeholder communication and influence
• Product strategy, roadmap, and backlog leadership
• Value led prioritisation and decision making
• Cross functional delivery leadership
• KPI definition, tracking, and value reporting
• Strategic thinking and systems perspective
• Consulting mindset with strong commercial awareness

Skills

Product Management, Data Analysis, Stakeholder Management, Reporting and Analytics