Senior User Research Manager – Metasearch (12-Month FTC)

Skyscanner Limited; City of London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading travel technology company in London is seeking a Senior User Research Manager (12-month FTC) to lead their Metasearch Research team. The role involves guiding research initiatives, providing strategic direction for product development, and ensuring a user-centric approach to decision-making. Candidates should have extensive mixed-methods expertise, strong leadership skills, and the ability to communicate complex data effectively. This position offers a hybrid work environment.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience with mixed-methods research.
• Understanding of product/user and brand/marketing research.
• Strong leadership and mentoring skills.
• Ability to translate complex data into compelling narratives.
• Experience in fast-paced environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic research initiatives across various teams.
• Guide product development with insights from research.
• Drive sophisticated research methodologies.
• Champion user-centered insights and make informed trade-offs.
• Collaborate with analytics to integrate findings into business strategies.

Skills

Mixed-methods Research Expertise

Research Methodology Knowledge

Leadership & Mentoring Skills

Storytelling

Analytical & Data-Driven

Job description

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About Skyscanner Everyone loves travelling, but planning is not without its challenges. That's why we've spent 20 years building tools that turn travel‑planning chaos into a breeze. Today, around 100 million travellers count on us every month to skip the whole “47 browser tabs open” phase and find flights, cars, and hotels quickly and easily. Joining Skyscanner means becoming part of a global brand that's striving to become the planet's go-to travel hack accessible for all. Our vision? To be the world's number one travel ally. (Ambitious? Yes, but, hey, that's what got us here). Now, we’re on the lookout for a Senior User Research Manager - 12 month FTC to help us bring that vision to even more travellers.

About The Role

(Hybrid) We’re looking for an experienced Senior User Research Manager to join Skyscanner on a 12‑month fixed‑term contract. You’ll lead our Metasearch Research team — the group responsible for understanding how travellers choose, compare, and book across Flights, Hotels, Packages, and Cars.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Leading Strategic Research Initiatives: Proactively identify and scope future‑facing research needs across Product, Design, Brand, and Marketing. Take ownership of complex, mixed‑method initiatives that shape business strategy and help define long‑term opportunities for growth and differentiation.
• Guiding Core Product Development: Provide strategic direction and hands‑on leadership across active workstreams spanning Flights, Hotels, Packages, and Cars. Ensure insights flow seamlessly into the product development process, helping teams prioritise, test, and iterate with confidence.
• Deepening Mixed‑Method Expertise: Drive the development and use of sophisticated research methodologies and frameworks, particularly in product research (both discovery and delivery), ensuring robust techniques, thoughtful analysis, and actionable insights that address critical business challenges.
• Team Leadership: Set the highest standards for research excellence across methodologies (e.g. interviews, user testing, surveys), mentoring and coaching your team to deliver high‑quality results through both self‑serve platforms and in‑house research tools. Guide the team in understanding and adopting new technology and tooling where these offer a significant advantage or unlock capacity to drive impact at greater scale.
• Cross‑Disciplinary Collaboration: Partner with CX, Product, and Analytics teams to define research objectives, develop insightful research solutions, and construct compelling, data‑driven narratives that inspire action, delivering measurable business impact.
• Voice of the User: Champion user‑centered insights, diving deep into metrics to make informed trade‑offs, remove blockers, and scale successes, while embracing a learning mindset to evolve research practices in a fast‑paced environment.
• Data Integration & Reporting: Collaborate closely with the Analytics team to connect research insights with broader business data, ensuring that research findings are integrated effectively into decision‑making processes and shaping strategy across the organisation.

About You

• Extensive Mixed‑methods Research Expertise: A proven track record in building and leading research programmes that combine qualitative depth with quantitative rigour. You’re equally comfortable designing and running in‑depth interviews and concept evaluations as you are synthesising behavioural data, usability metrics, or large‑scale survey results.
• Comprehensive Research Methodology Knowledge: Expertise in both product/user research and brand/marketing research. You have a keen understanding of how to apply different research methodologies to solve diverse business problems.
• Strong Leadership & Mentoring Skills: Coaching a small team of researchers and fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth, empowering your team to excel in delivering high‑quality research.
• Clear, Impactful Storytelling: Adept at translating complex data into compelling narratives that drive decision‑making and inspire action from stakeholders at all levels of the business.
• Growth‑Oriented Mindset: A solution‑oriented approach with strong business acumen. You possess the ability to navigate ambiguity and think creatively to solve problems, while maintaining a focus on user‑centred outcomes.
• Experience in Fast‑Paced Environments: You excel in dynamic, fast‑moving organisations and are comfortable leading multiple projects simultaneously while meeting deadlines and driving results.
• Deep Analytical & Data‑Driven: Passionate about integrating quantitative and qualitative insights to inform business strategy and ensure that the traveller’s voice is always at the heart of decision‑making.
• Autonomous Self‑Starter and Influencer: Confident partnering with senior leaders and VPs, with experience influencing at a strategic level rather than simply delivering on requests.

What It's Like Here

We are the real deal — no corporate gloss, no empty promises. Just a team of genuinely curious, caring humans, building things that help travellers explore the world a little easier. Skyscanner is made up of brilliant humans from every corner of the world. We believe travel makes the world better - and that the same is true of our diverse teams. We're proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to building an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and products that are accessible to all.

Sound like your kind of adventure? Apply now and help us shape the future of travel.

We’re committed to ensuring our application and recruitment processes are inclusive and accessible to everyone. If you require any reasonable adjustments or accommodations for interviews, and/or wish to apply under the Disability Confident scheme, please let your recruiter know. If you’d like more information on any of our policies, such as hybrid working or Parental Leave policies (typically we pay a minimum of 24 weeks birth parent/maternity leave globally), our recruitment team can provide more information on these.