Forward Role are excited to be partnering exclusively with a data‑driven technology business in Manchester. Due to continued growth, an incredibly exciting opportunity has arisen for a passionate Data Director to join the talented team.
This senior leadership role sits at the heart of a fast‑moving, data‑driven technology business, where data underpins product development, customer experience, operational performance, and commercial decision‑making. As Director of Data, you'll shape how the organisation uses insight and technology to scale effectively and compete more intelligently. You'll own the full data strategy across analytics, engineering, quality, governance, and emerging capabilities such as AI‑driven products and automation.
You'll be responsible for creating an insight‑led culture and ensuring teams across the business can access trusted, actionable data at pace. Your remit will span the full customer journey, covering digital performance, acquisition analytics, channel optimisation, forecasting, experimentation, and supporting operational teams with improved decisioning and performance frameworks. A major part of the role is connecting data with real commercial impact, using insights to influence growth, efficiency, customer outcomes, and product development.
Role & Responsibilities
Defining and delivering a scalable data strategy that accelerates analytics maturity.
Championing data as a strategic asset across every business area.
Building a roadmap that strengthens foundational data quality and supports AI‑enabled capabilities.
Leading and developing multi‑disciplinary teams across analytics, insights, BI and data engineering.
Ensuring analytics is deeply aligned with priorities from Product, Marketing, Sales and Operations.
Driving modern analytical practices including attribution modelling, forecasting, experimentation, and digital performance analysis.
Overseeing the architecture, reliability and performance of data platforms, pipelines and models.
Embedding strong governance, documentation, modelling standards and security best practice.
Reducing technical debt and ensuring high availability and stability of data systems.
Supporting a wide range of use cases from automated reporting through to machine learning‑driven products.
Translating complex insight into clear recommendations that influence trading, strategy and product decisions.
Identifying opportunities for growth and operational efficiency through deeper customer and channel understanding.
Building business cases, scenarios and forecasts to support commercial planning.
Strengthening the accuracy and transparency of channel performance, attribution and investment evaluation.
Maintaining high standards of data quality, lineage, privacy and compliance.
Creating progression pathways, upskilling programmes and a culture of curiosity, collaboration and accountability.
To succeed, you'll combine strategic leadership with hands‑on credibility across both analytics and engineering. You'll be comfortable operating in high‑volume, high‑availability data environments, and you'll understand the commercial mechanics of digital‑first businesses. Most importantly, you'll be excited by the opportunity to build, scale and shape the future of data in a growing organisation, unlocking new opportunities and maximising the value of the company's data assets.
The successful candidate will be happy travelling to the Manchester offer 3 days a week.
Applications will be reviewed from week commencing 9th March.