The NRLA: Who we are
The UK's largest membership organisation for private residential landlords, the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) supports and represents more than 100,000 members across England and Wales.
Created by landlords, for landlords, it offers investors everything they need to run a successful and compliant lettings business, whether they are full-time property professionals running large portfolios or accidental landlords with a single let.
The NRLA is a trusted ally, on hand to guide members through the complex regulatory environment, with all the essential documents and guidance needed to run a successful and fully compliant business.
A truly member-first organisation, innovation is at the heart of what we do and have invested in and developed new proptech solutions for members, including the acquisition of property safety certification firm Safe2 and the development of the property management system Portfolio.
A dynamic and fast-paced organisation, the NRLA is a great place to work, and it is not just us saying that; we have Investors in People Gold status to prove it. The association was also named one of the best companies to work for in the UK in a list compiled by The Sunday Times.
Our enthusiastic and ambitious staff work out of offices in Central Manchester and Central London, with hybrid working options available. Colleagues typically work from home four days a week, with one day in the office.
We are looking for colleagues who are professional, adaptable, and innovative. In return, we offer an inclusive and creative working environment with attractive options for training and career development, and a competitive salary and benefits package.
The NRLA package:
25 days annual leave increasing to 26 days with three years’ service, 27 days with five years’ service and 28 days with seven years’ service
Additional annual day off for your birthday
Salary exchange Pension scheme
Life assurance
Cash plan health and wellbeing benefit including Employee Assistance Programme and counselling service
Sick pay
Cycle purchase loans, season tickets loans and interest-free staff loans
Complimentary NRLA membership
Non-contractual annual performance-related bonus scheme
Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
Location:
Hybrid - working from either the London or Manchester office
Main Purpose & Scope of Job:
We are looking for a Product Manager to take ownership of NRLA's core digital products, Portfolio and Safe2. Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, you will be responsible for the day-to-day management of your products: understanding member and business needs, shaping the roadmap, prioritising the backlog, and working hand in hand with developers to deliver features that make a real difference to landlords.
This is a hands-on role for someone who combines commercial and member insight with a genuine and demonstrable understanding of how products are built. You will be accountable for the outcomes your products achieve, not simply the features that ship. Portfolio and Safe2 are central to NRLA 2.0, our organisation-wide transformation programme, and this role is key to delivering it. As that transformation develops, there is scope to broaden your remit across the wider organisation.
What you can expect
- Ownership of established products with a real user base from day one.
- A modern, evidence-led approach to product, and the autonomy to shape how your products develop.
- A small, senior team and direct line to the Chief Product Officer.
Duties & Key Responsibilities
Product strategy and roadmap:
- Own the vision, strategy and roadmap for Portfolio and Safe2, aligned to NRLA's business priorities and the needs of members.
- Identify the problems and opportunities that matter most, drawing on data, member feedback, market insight and your own product knowledge.
- Define clear, measurable success metrics for each product and each significant feature, and track outcomes after launch to learn what worked.
- Make prioritisation decisions transparently, balancing member value, commercial impact, effort and risk, and communicate the rationale to stakeholders.
Working with the development team:
- Own and continuously prioritise the product backlog, keeping it clear, current and ready for the team.
- Take part in sprint planning, backlog refinement, stand-ups and reviews, agreeing sprint goals and priorities collaboratively with developers rather than handing work down.
- Write clear user stories and acceptance criteria, and be available to developers day to day to answer questions, resolve ambiguity and make quick decisions that keep delivery moving.
- Protect the team's focus, managing scope and expectations so they can deliver against agreed sprint commitments.
Discovery and definition:
- Lead product discovery to understand member needs and validate that a problem is worth solving before committing to a solution.
- Turn priorities into well-defined, build-ready features: the problem being solved, the intended outcome, the detail of how it should work and the edge cases.
- Challenge requests that jump straight to a solution, avoid over-engineering, and define the smallest release that delivers value.
Stakeholder and cross-functional working:
- Work closely with Design, Data, Marketing, Commercial, Operations, Policy and Technology to shape and deliver product changes.
- Engage stakeholders across the business, communicating the roadmap, managing expectations and building support for product decisions.
- Represent the member's voice, and keep member and customer needs at the centre of every decision.
Change leadership:
- Leadership of a team of Business Analysts responsible for delivering critical elements of the change delivery process.
- Responsibility to identify skill gaps within the team and coach, mentor and develop them over time.
Development and growth:
- Play a leading role in NRLA 2.0, our transformation programme, helping to embed a modern, evidence-led way of working and to shape product thinking across the wider organisation as your remit grows.
Person Specification
Qualifications:
- Proven experience as a Product Manager owning a digital product end-to-end, from discovery through delivery to post-launch iteration.
- Experience working in an agile environment, closely alongside a development team.
Skills & Abilities:
- Strong product discovery skills: able to identify and validate the problems worth solving from data, member feedback and market insight.
- Evidence-based decision making, comfortable challenging assumptions and saying when something is not yet proven or is over-engineered.
- Confident writing user stories and acceptance criteria, managing a backlog and running sprints with developers.
- Strong prioritisation and roadmap skills, able to make and explain trade-offs.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management, able to bring people with you rather than dictate.
- Comfortable with detail: edge cases, requirements and how a feature splits into deliverable work.
- Commercially aware, with a focus on outcomes and measurable impact rather than features shipped.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and a fast-changing environment.
Experience:
Essential
- Product management in a subscription, membership or multi-sided (B2B and B2C) business.
- Managing and prioritising a backlog and working through the full agile delivery cycle with developers.
- Using evidence, user research and data to shape product decisions.
- Defining and tracking product success measures and acting on the results.
Desirable
- Experience in a regulated or compliance-related product area.
- Exposure to the property, lettings or membership body sector.
Knowledge:
- Understanding of modern product management practice: discovery, agile delivery, prioritisation and outcome measurement.
- Awareness of NRLA's Portfolio and Safe2 products, or the ability to build this quickly.
- Understanding of how Product, Design and Technology work together to deliver software.
Personal Attributes and other requirements:
- Proactive and highly accountable, comfortable owning a product's outcomes.
- Pragmatic, taking a sensible, right-sized approach for an organisation of around 140 people.
- Clear communicator, able to bring stakeholders along rather than dictate to them.
- Enthusiastic about developing the role and NRLA's product capability over time.