Newcastle University
Product and Applications Lead
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Salary: £36,636 to £38,784 with progression to £46,049 per annum
Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.
Closing Date: 25 September 2026
The Role
The NIHR Innovation Observatory (IO) is a world-leading health and care innovation horizon scanning research centre based at Newcastle University. Our work supports government agencies, industry, regulators, charities, and researchers by delivering timely, actionable insights that inform strategic decision-making, policy development, investment guidance, funding programs and improve alignment across agencies. We work across the health, life sciences and wider care ecosystem to identify innovation, gaps and unmet needs, follow trends and signal potentially game changing innovations. Our work fosters national and international collaboration supporting the growth of the UK health and life sciences sector, and is a beacon for cross-sector, interdisciplinary training and capacity building in horizon scanning and foresight. We are at the forefront of developing approaches and people to identify and analyse emerging health and care technologies, ensuring the UK is prepared to leverage scientific breakthroughs that improve patient outcomes and support system readiness.
The Innovation Observatory is developing a new generation of technical infrastructure to support horizon scanning across health, care and life sciences. This includes OpenScan, our core data and horizon scanning platform, alongside a growing portfolio of applications supporting evidence identification, prioritisation, analysis, reporting and stakeholder engagement. As these systems move from development into rollout and operational use, dedicated capacity is required to ensure they are clearly specified, usable, tested, adopted, documented, supported and continuously improved.
The Post Holder Has a Responsibility For Promoting The Values Of The NIHR Innovation Observatory Through Appropriate And Visible Leadership Behaviours And Actions. They Will Have a Particular Responsibility To
- Teamwork: Collaborate with kindness, value and respecting everyone, offering help and support. Actively promoting an open flow of information and seeking to partner with external interest holders/stakeholders in all our activities
- Courage and Ambition: Operate at the top of your game, valuing and actively seeking out learning and development opportunities. Giving and receiving feedback with honesty and reflecting on your approaches
- Curiosity and Open-mindedness: Embrace creativity and value originality, seizing opportunities to learn and innovate
- Integrity and Quality: Walk the talk and be well-prepared and robust in your approach, delivering high quality timely outputs, and managing your time and resources effectively
We are seeking an organised, proactive and user-focused Product and Applications Lead to support the rollout, adoption, operational management and continuous improvement of applications across the NIHR Innovation Observatory. This is an opportunity to play an important role in embedding a new generation of infrastructure for horizon scanning across the health, care and life sciences sector. The post holder will support OpenScan and associated applications as they move through development, testing, implementation and routine use.
Working closely with the Technical Infrastructure Lead, Technical Project Manager, software engineers, researchers and analysts, the post holder will act as a key link between application users and technical delivery. The Technical Project Manager will coordinate technical delivery and infrastructure development, while the Product and Applications Lead will focus on application requirements, usability, implementation, adoption and ongoing improvement. This will include requirements gathering, application-level prioritisation, user testing, release readiness, onboarding, documentation, feedback management and application lifecycle activity.
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The role does not require the post holder to be a software engineer or to write production code. However, they will need sufficient technical fluency to work confidently with developers and technical project colleagues, understand the operation and constraints of software and data systems, and translate effectively between user needs and technical delivery.
You will work in partnership with the Data Manager, who leads on data governance, compliance and data standards, to ensure that applications align with agreed policies and support appropriate and effective data use. The role is central to ensuring that the IO’s technical infrastructure translates into usable, adopted and impactful applications that support analytical workflows and stakeholder needs. The post holder will champion a user-centred approach, ensuring that applications reflect user workflows, incorporate feedback and apply appropriate usability and accessibility principles.
The role is ideal for someone with strong organisational skills, an interest in technical applications and data systems, excellent communication skills, and the ability to work confidently between technical and non-technical colleagues. The successful candidate will help ensure that the IO’s growing application portfolio is successfully implemented, adopted, supported and improved over time.
The post is fixed term, until March 2031.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Dawn Craig at Dawn.Craig@newcastle.ac.uk.
Key Accountabilities
- Lead the rollout, adoption and ongoing management of OpenScan and associated IO applications
- Work closely with the Technical Project Manager to ensure that application requirements, user needs, adoption activity and delivery priorities are clearly defined and coordinated with wider technical programme plans
- Maintain a structured view of application requirements, priorities, expected functionality, change requests, defects and issues, ensuring that these are clearly captured and prioritised
- Work with analysts, programme teams, internal users and, where appropriate, external partners and stakeholders to understand application needs and translate them into clear requirements for technical colleagues
- Coordinate user engagement, usability assessment, user acceptance testing, feedback gathering and application review sessions
- Support transitions from legacy systems to new infrastructure and applications, including implementation planning, communications, onboarding, testing, documentation and user adoption
- Develop and maintain application documentation, including user guides, release notes, onboarding materials, access guidance, support information and FAQs
- Develop and maintain clear application access, acceptable-use and support arrangements, including terms of use, access processes, user guidance and support routes, aligned with relevant data governance and organisational policies
- Monitor application usage, adoption, user feedback, known issues, support needs and realised benefits once applications are live
- Coordinate periodic reviews of live applications, covering usability, access and permissions, documentation, user feedback, support arrangements, known issues and continued fitness for purpose
- Coordinate application release readiness, ensuring that appropriate testing, documentation, communications, access arrangements, onboarding materials and support routes are in place before applications go live
- Support application lifecycle management, including tracking enhancements, defects, support needs and maintenance requirements, and contributing to decisions about application replacement or retirement
- Coordinate with third-party suppliers, collaborators and external developers where application requirements, testing, rollout, documentation or user support are involved
- Provide clear, structured updates to the Technical Project Manager and Technical Infrastructure Lead on application status, adoption, user feedback, risks, dependencies and priorities
- Contribute to the continuous improvement of application delivery, implementation, adoption and support processes across the IO
- Champion a user-centred approach to application development and improvement by understanding user workflows, identifying barriers to use and adoption, coordinating usability testing, and ensuring that user feedback informs application priorities
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The Person
Knowledge, Skills And Experience
- Experience supporting or leading the delivery, implementation, rollout or operational management of technical applications, data systems, software products or technology-enabled services
- Experience working with technical teams, users and stakeholders to gather requirements and support delivery
- Ability to translate user needs into clear and structured requirements, priorities, expected outcomes and criteria for testing or acceptance
- Experience coordinating user testing, feedback gathering, rollout planning, onboarding or application adoption
- Sufficient technical fluency to work confidently with software, data and technical project colleagues, including the ability to understand and discuss application functionality, data flows, integrations, releases, defects, access arrangements and technical constraints
- Good understanding of how applications move from development into testing, implementation and live use
- Familiarity with iterative delivery approaches, such as Agile or Kanban, in a technical or application-based environment
- Strong organisational skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, actions, documents and priorities
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate effectively between technical and non-technical audiences and ensure that user needs, technical constraints and delivery priorities are clearly understood
- Ability to work collaboratively with software engineers/developers, analysts, project managers, programme leads and senior colleagues
- Confidence using project-tracking, documentation and collaboration tools such as GitHub, Monday.com, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams or equivalent
Desirable
- Experience working in a health, care, life sciences, research, university or public sector environment
- Experience supporting data platforms, research software, dashboards or knowledge management tools
- Experience with application lifecycle management, product backlog management and/or service delivery
- Familiarity with cloud-based applications, APIs, databases, data pipelines or software development workflows
- Experience supporting transition from legacy systems to new technical platforms
- Experience coordinating documentation, user guides, release notes, training materials, or support information for applications
- Experience supporting supplier, vendor, or external development partner coordination
- Awareness of data governance, information governance, data quality, access control, or user permissions
- Interest in horizon scanning, health innovation, technical infrastructure or applied AI
Attributes and Behaviour
- Highly organised, reliable, and able to follow through on agreed actions
- User-focused, with a commitment to making applications useful, usable, accessible and adopted in practice
- Able to work effectively between technical and non-technical teams
- Able to bring structure and clarity to ambiguous, incomplete or evolving requirements
- Pragmatic and delivery focused, with good judgement about what needs to be escalated and what can be resolved quickly
- Collaborative and constructive, with a commitment to supporting colleagues and improving ways of working
- Confidence to challenge unclear requirements, weak processes or poorly
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