A research data manager plans, organises and safeguards the data a research project produces — from collection through documentation, storage, sharing and long-term archiving — and is distinct from a data steward (governance-focused) or a research administrator (grants and compliance-focused). The role sits at the intersection of research support, information management and IT, typically inside a university’s library, research office or a funded project team.
This guide sets out the research data manager job description, the skills and qualifications employers ask for, how the role differs from adjacent titles, and the realistic career path from entry-level data support through to strategic data leadership.
- What is a research data manager?
- What does a research data manager do day to day?
- Research data manager vs data steward vs research administrator
- What skills, qualifications and training are required?
- What is the typical career path and salary range?
- Common questions about the role
- What this means for institutions and job seekers
What is a research data manager?
A research data manager is the named individual responsible for a project’s or department’s data management plan, metadata standards and repository deposits. The role exists because funders increasingly require a documented, reusable dataset alongside every publication, not just the paper itself.
The task is not new — it maps closely to the Data Curation contributor role in the CRediT taxonomy, defined as “management activity to annotate, scrub data and maintain research data for initial use and later re-use.” CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014; the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and Data Curation remains one of its 14 defined roles — evidence that the function research data managers perform has been formally recognised in scholarly attribution for over a decade.
What does a research data manager do day to day?
Day-to-day work centres on making a project’s data findable, well-documented and safely stored, then repeatable for the next study. Typical duties, drawn from published UK university and NHS job descriptions, include:
- Drafting and reviewing data management plans (DMPs) for grant applications
- Setting up and maintaining databases, spreadsheets and case report forms for a study
- Applying metadata standards so datasets are discoverable in institutional or subject repositories
- Coordinating deposit of datasets with DataCite-registered DOIs for citation and reuse
- Running data quality checks, version control and access permissions across a research team
- Training researchers and doctoral students in good data management practice
- Advising on compliance with funder data policies and data protection legislation
Research data manager vs data steward vs research administrator
These three titles are frequently confused in job adverts because responsibilities overlap, but their primary focus and reporting line differ. The table below distinguishes the three roles as they typically appear in UK higher education and research institutions.
| Dimension | Research Data Manager | Data Steward | Research Administrator |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Lifecycle management of a specific project’s or department’s datasets | Institution-wide data governance, quality rules and ownership policy | Grant administration, compliance and researcher support |
| Typical base | Research office, library or funded project team | IT services, information governance or central data office | Research office, faculty or funder-facing team |
| Core output | Data management plans, metadata, repository deposits | Data policies, classification schemes, access controls | Grant applications, contracts, financial and ethics reporting |
| Professional body | Often affiliated with library/data-curation networks | Information governance and data protection networks | ARMA (UK/Ireland), EARMA, INORMS, NCURA |
| Typical entry route | Data science, library/information studies, life sciences degree | IT governance, information management background | Any discipline plus research administration training |
What skills, qualifications and training are required?
Employers combine technical data skills with domain and communication skills, since the role requires translating funder and disciplinary requirements into practical workflows researchers will actually follow.
- Data handling: spreadsheet and database competence; SQL, Python or R are increasingly listed as desirable
- Standards knowledge: metadata schemas, DataCite, ORCID identifiers, and repository deposit workflows
- Policy literacy: UK GDPR, funder data policies, and institutional research governance frameworks
- Communication: training researchers, writing plain-English guidance, negotiating with study sponsors
- Project management: running parallel studies to funder deadlines with limited resource
Formal training routes include postgraduate qualifications in library and information science or data science, plus shorter dedicated courses. The Digital Curation Centre (DCC), funded by Jisc, has provided UK universities with research data management guidance and training resources since 2004 and remains the primary UK reference point for RDM practice. Institutional RDM obligations trace back to funder policy: EPSRC’s research data expectations, effective from 1 May 2015, require UK institutions receiving its funding to publish a research data management policy and a roadmap for compliance. The 2016 Concordat on Open Research Data — jointly published by Research Councils UK, Universities UK, Wellcome Trust and HEFCE — set out ten principles establishing that data management planning should be integral to research design, reinforcing why institutions now hire dedicated staff for this function rather than leaving it to individual researchers.
What is the typical career path and salary range?
Entry typically begins in a data assistant or data curator post supporting a research team’s day-to-day data handling, often on a fixed-term contract tied to a specific study. Real UK job postings illustrate the entry tier clearly: an NHS Research Data Manager post advertised in May 2025 by Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust was graded at Agenda for Change Band 4, with a salary of £26,530 to £29,114 a year.
Progression moves through Research Data Manager (owning DMPs and repository workflows for a department or portfolio of studies) to Senior/Lead Research Data Manager, where the postholder sets institutional RDM policy and may supervise a small team. The most senior tier — Director of Research Data Services or equivalent — sets strategic direction for an institution’s entire research data infrastructure and reports into the research office or library leadership. Unlike research administration, a PhD is not a standard requirement at any tier, though it is common among staff who progress from a research role into data management.
Common questions about the role
What are the responsibilities of a data manager?
A data manager is responsible for the entire data lifecycle: collection, quality control, storage, security, documentation and eventual archiving or disposal. In a research context this extends to writing data management plans, applying metadata standards, and coordinating repository deposit so datasets remain reusable after a project ends.
What does a research data manager do?
A research data manager develops and implements the policies, workflows and documentation that keep a project’s or department’s datasets organised, secure and discoverable. Duties include drafting data management plans, training researchers, running quality checks, and depositing data with persistent identifiers such as DataCite DOIs for citation and reuse.
What is the salary of a data manager?
Salaries vary widely by sector and seniority. A UK NHS-graded entry-level research data manager post advertised in 2025 sat at Agenda for Change Band 4, paying £26,530–£29,114 a year; senior and director-level research data roles in universities and industry command substantially higher salaries, reflecting added strategic and line-management responsibility.
What are the 4 types of research data?
Research data is commonly grouped into primary data (collected directly for the study), secondary data (reused from existing sources), and quantitative versus qualitative data by format. A research data manager must apply appropriate metadata, storage and sharing rules to each type, since funder and ethical requirements differ across them.
What this means for institutions and job seekers
For institutions, the job description confusion between research data manager, data steward and research administrator is itself a risk: unclear scoping leads to duplicated effort or gaps in funder compliance. Writing role descriptions that reference recognised frameworks — the CRediT Data Curation role, DCC guidance, and funder RDM policy — gives hiring managers a defensible, standards-aligned specification rather than an ad hoc list of duties.
For job seekers, the clearest differentiator to lead with on an application is lifecycle ownership of data, not general IT or administrative competence. As funders continue tightening open-data mandates, demand for staff who can demonstrate metadata standards knowledge, repository deposit experience and DMP authorship is likely to keep outpacing supply, making this one of the more durable specialisms within the broader research administration and support ecosystem.
For related roles and standards context, see CASRAI’s CRediT contributor roles hub, the research administration dictionary, and the research administration pillar.
