Senior Customer Research & Insight Manager

Job Description

Senior Customer Research & Insight Manager

Warrington / Hybrid working (3 days per week onsite)

At United Utilities, customer insight doesn’t sit on the sidelines it directly shapes our strategy, reputation, and regulatory commitments. This is a high-profile, business-critical role at the heart of our Corporate Affairs & Communications directorate, influencing decisions that affect millions of customers.

We’re looking for a seasoned customer research and insight professional to lead a best in class insight programme that drives action, strengthens our brand, and ensures the customer voice is embedded across the organisation.

The role

As our Senior Customer Research & Insight Manager, you’ll lead and evolve an enterprise wide customer insight function that supports multiple directorates, senior leaders, and regulators. Operating in a fast-paced, highly regulated sector, you’ll bring deep expertise across qualitative and quantitative methodologies and, critically, the ability to translate insight into meaningful business outcomes.

This role offers real autonomy from day one, with the opportunity to build and grow the insight function over time.

What you’ll be responsible for

You’ll:

• Lead and manage a far-reaching, high-quality customer insight programme embedded across the organisation
• Design and deliver robust qualitative and quantitative research that informs strategy, service design, communications and brand
• Own and evolve key insight workstreams including brand tracking, behavioural change research, customer acceptability and willingness to pay, and our online customer research panel
• Provide insight into brand performance, customer priorities, service preferences and brand perception
• Ensure customer insight underpins regulatory decision-making, including alignment with Ofwat guidance and CCW consumer expectations
• Lead the customer insight programme for Price Reviews, producing high-quality regulatory submissions that clearly evidence how customer research has influenced business planning
• Deliver compelling insight outputs reports, presentations, workshops that enable colleagues to confidently act on findings
• Work with senior stakeholders across Communications, Brand, Customer Services, Asset Management and Regulation
• Manage budgets and partner agencies, including tendering and performance management

Operate as a trusted senior adviser on customer insight, brand and reputation

What you’ll bring

This is a role for a highly experienced, credible customer insight leader who is comfortable operating at senior levels and influencing complex organisations.

You’ll bring:

• Degree-level education and significant experience in senior customer insight or research leadership roles
• Deep expertise across qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, operating at the forefront of best practice
• Strong strategic capability able to convert insight into tangible business, customer and reputational impact
• Extensive experience leading complex, multi-stakeholder programmes of work
• Proven ability to interpret and act on nuanced regulatory guidance
• A sophisticated understanding of brand, reputation and marketing led insight
• Strong analytical reasoning, project management, financial and supplier management skills
• Excellent influencing, negotiation, presentation and communication skills
• Digital and data fluency, ideally including CRM, customer segmentation, marketing automation and data led insight

What you’ll get

We offer a highly competitive and flexible reward package:

• Up to 20% annual bonus
• £5,000 car allowance
• Exceptional pension up to 21% combined contribution
• Private healthcare
• Share buy scheme
• Wellbeing benefits and support
• Retail discounts
• Hybrid working for a healthy work life balance (3 days per week onsite)