Senior Programme Manager – Data Strategy and Standards

28 August 2026

Purpose of the post

The role is accountable for supporting the CDO to develop, maintain and embed a coherent Data Strategy narrative, roadmap, standards portfolio and capability portfolio across HDR UK. The role will support strategic oversight of reusable national data capabilities and standards initiatives, ensuring they have clear governance, prioritisation, sustainability plans, adoption routes and alignment with Institute priorities. It will translate the Institute’s Data Strategy into a clear operating rhythm, including prioritisation across the system, OKRs, portfolio-level planning and regular engagement with wider IDO, SLT, CTO, CSA, Trust and Ethics, Delivery, HDR UK programmes and national and international partners.

Main responsibilities

• Support the CDO in developing, maintaining and communicating a coherent Data Strategy narrative and roadmap, ensuring it reflects HDR UK’s overall strategy and the priorities of the Institute Data Office operating model.
• Lead the translation of Data Strategy priorities into quarterly planning, OKRs, portfolio-level delivery plans and reporting for SLT, Board and other governance forums.
• Coordinate HDR UK’s standards portfolio, working closely with standards leads and subject matter experts to support phenotypes, metadata, and standards development, implementation planning, adoption and alignment with programmes, such as the BHF Data Science Centre, HDR Alliance, Research Driver Programmes, and relevant national and international standards initiatives.
• Maintain awareness of national and international health data strategy, standards, infrastructure and policy developments, ensuring HDR UK’s Data Strategy remains aligned, credible and positioned to influence the wider ecosystem.
• Lead on preparation of materials and programme management of IDO Data Strategy, developing project plans and timelines, tracking deliverables, interdependencies, risk and mitigation, and supporting alignment, utilising project management tools such as Mto track deliveryonday.com
• Contribute to Patient, Public Involvement and Engagement activities, promoting effective inclusive approaches to demonstrate trustworthiness and promote confidence in the ethical use and re-use of health data for research and innovation
• Contribute to ongoing IDO strategy and objectives to identify, drive and support opportunities for leveraging funding and co-leveraging opportunities across Programmes, keeping abreast of emerging and relevant developments in the health data ecosystem
• Line management of the Business Support Administrator (BSA), supporting their role, workplans and opportunities for learning and development across the organisation.
• With the BSA and wider IDO team, coordinate and manage activities and events to support development, prioritisation, and implementation of the Data Strategy, identifying opportunities across the Institute and with wider stakeholders to enhance monitoring and measurement of delivery, impact and integration.~

General responsibilities:

• Enable use of appropriate team communications and project management tools.
• Support development of reference communication materials such as standard presentation and communications decks.
• Be prepared and able to work flexibly to support colleagues as needed, adapting to an evolving environment and emerging priorities.

Please note, as we are a UK-based organisation,  applicants must be living in, and eligible to work in, the UK. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time. 

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications for the role. Therefore, if you are interested, please submit your application as early as possible.

We politely request no contact from recruitment agencies or media sales. We do not accept speculative CVs from recruitment agencies nor accept the fees associated with them.

For more information, please download the Job Description