Data & Intelligence Discovery Lead (6 Month Secondment)

About the Secondment

Taylor & Francis is building toward a world-class AI and data intelligence platform (Marketplace). Before we hire permanently into the Head of Data & Intelligence role and begin that build in earnest we need to understand clearly what we already have and what we do not.

This secondment is an investigative mandate. The person who takes it will spend six months mapping T&Fs current data and intelligence landscape with rigour and curiosity auditing existing capability identifying gaps and producing the baseline that the permanent Head of Data and Intelligence will build from. It is foundational work and it matters.

This is not a Data Analyst role - data analysis sits entirely in the RAD function and the current RAD team will be a key stakeholder in this secondment.

The successful individual requires a data and intelligence product development mindset to assess the data and intelligence capabilities that exist across T&F today: in product teams in engineering in commercial and in pockets of the business that have built their own approaches to data and intelligence. Some of it is sophisticated. Some of it is inconsistent. Some of it is not visible to the people who could benefit from it most. We do not yet have a complete picture of what we have where it is or how well it is working.

The Data & Intelligence Discovery Lead will create that picture.

This is an investigative rolepart internal audit part stakeholder research part strategic synthesis. You will move across the business with the mandate to ask the questions that nobody has yet asked systematically:

• What data assets do we hold and how well are they used
• Where are AI or ML capabilities already in operation formally or informally
• What does each part of the business need from a data and intelligence function that it is not currently getting
• What would it take to build something genuinely excellent

At the end of six months you will have produced the baseline that the permanent Head of Data & Intelligence will inherit: a clear honest and well-evidenced account of where T&F stands today and a set of strategic recommendations for what should be our next steps in strategy formulation. The quality of that baseline will directly determine how fast the permanent role can move.

What Youll Be Doing

Audit & Map Existing Capability

Your starting point is understanding what platform intelligence exists without assumptions.

• Conduct a structured audit of all data assets currently heldtheir source format quality accessibility and how actively they are being used to inform product or commercial decisions
• Map every instance of AI machine learning or algorithmic decision-making currently in operationincluding informal or team-built tools not just officially commissioned capabilities
• Understand our current AEO/GEO and SEO positioning to inform UC growth

What Success Looks Like

At the end of six months success is not a presentation. It is a genuine foundation. The permanent Head of Data & Intelligence should be able to walk into the role read the baseline report and understand clearlywithout having to re-discover it themselveswhat T&F has what it needs and where to start.

Success means delivering:

• A complete and honest inventory of our current data assets tools and intelligence capabilities
• A clear gap analysis between current state and the AI platform ambitionprioritised by commercial and product impact
• A set of strategic recommendations for the permanent Head of Intelligence that are specific evidenced and actionable
• A network of relationships across the business that the permanent Head of Intelligence inherits and can build from
• Foundational documentation that reduces the permanent hires time to impact from months to weeks

The Six Months

The secondment is structured across five overlapping phases:

Month 12: Discovery & Mapping

• Complete a structured audit of all value-driven existing data assets including traffic analysis across our platforms to inform the growth of UC models in use and intelligence capabilities across the business
• Map what exists where it lives and who owns it

Month 23: Assessment & Gap Analysis

• Evaluate the maturity quality and commercial relevance of what has been discovered
• Identify the gaps between current capability and what our UC/Marketplace ambition requires

Month 34: Stakeholder Intelligence

• Conduct structured conversations across Product Engineering Commercial and Data teams to understand how data and intelligence are being used where the frustrations are and what the organisation needs

Month 45: Synthesis & Recommendations

• Develop the baseline reporta clear evidenced picture of where we stand today and what it needs to build
• Draft the strategic recommendations that will inform the permanent Head of D&I mandate

Month 56: Handover & Foundation

• Present findings to VP Product and the P&T leadership team
• Create the foundational documentation frameworks and relationships that set the permanent Head of D&I up to move at pace from day one

These phases are designed to overlapstakeholder conversations will continue throughout and synthesis will begin before discovery is complete. The phases describe emphasis not hard boundaries.

Qualifications :

What were looking for

You are:

• Analytically strong  you are comfortable working with data assessing quality and coverage and forming well-reasoned conclusions from incomplete information
• Investigative by nature  you ask the next question not just the obvious one and you are not satisfied with the first answer you are given
• A strong interviewer and listener  you can conduct structured stakeholder conversations that surface what people think not just what they think you want to hear
• Comfortable with ambiguity  you can begin work without a complete brief create your own structure and produce clear outputs from a messy starting point
• Credible across functions  you can engage with engineering on data infrastructure with product on intelligence needs and with commercial on data-driven decision-making and be taken seriously in each conversation
• A clear and direct communicator  your written and verbal outputs are accessible to non-specialist audiences without sacrificing accuracy
• Familiar with how data and AI/ML capabilities work in a product context  not as a practitioner but as someone who understands what these capabilities can and cannot do and can assess them with informed judgement
• Aware of T&Fs ambition  you understand how the marketplace works what drives commercial performance and why data and intelligence matter at our scale

Additional Information :

Closing date 24th July 2026

Location: The successful candidate will be able to utilise our balanced working model. We ask that candidates live within a commutable distance of our offices in Milton Park Oxfordshire or London Blackfriars to ensure that as a balanced worker they can make it to our office location 3 days per week. 

You must have the right to work and live in the UK. 

What we offer in return: 

• A competitive salary bonus
• An excellent work/life balance with a fantastic flexible working culture
• 25 days annual leave
• 3 additional discretionary days off during the holiday season at the end of the year
• 4 volunteering days annually
• Day off for your birthday
• Company funded single cover private medical insurance  
• Employee assistance programme offering 24/7 well-being support 
• Share Match Plan that matches every share purchased with two free shares. 
• Pension scheme 
• Life assurance plus optical and medical care

If youre excited about working with Taylor & Francis to foster human progress through knowledge we invite you to apply even if your existing skills and experience dont fit every item listed above. At Taylor & Francis we are at our best and most successful when colleagues can be themselves and make a contribution regardless of their identity or background. As a colleague you will have the opportunity to further innovate and develop in areas that you are passionate about. Our goal is to empower you with the resources incentives and flexibility you need to enjoy success at work and to live a healthy balanced life. 

Taylor & Francis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in and value diversity of people and thought fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where all colleagues can learn and succeed as their true selves. Taylor & Francis recruits develops and retains colleagues without regard to any protected personal characteristics or other non-merit based factor. 

We want all our candidates to shine in our recruitment process. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to ensure you are able to show us your best self. This could include having the application form in a different format more time for questions or anything else please ask us we are happy to be flexible! Please contact 

Remote Work :

No

Employment Type :

Full-time