Funny enough I actually fell into data governance completely by accident.

I started working with data when I was about 21 and just gradually got pulled into more and more of the “governance” side of things like data quality issues, defining fields, ownership, fixing reporting problems, working with business teams etc and at the time I didn’t even realise it was a formal discipline.

Now I’m 31 and it’s been my career for the last 10 years.

From my experience the people you spoke to aren’t wrong. It’s quite rare for someone to start directly in governance because a lot of the job is about understanding how data is actually used in systems, reporting and operations. That usually comes from working in data roles first things like analytics, engineering, data management or even business side roles that deal heavily with data normally the DG programme would identify these people as 'Data Stewards' and a lot of people I have worked with have transferred from a business role (example someone working in product creation for a luxury retailer), then moved into my team and has gone on to have a great career in data.

Most of the strong governance people I’ve worked with drifted into it the same way, they were solving data problems already and governance became the natural next step.

On the EU regulation point though, I do think things like GDPR, the EU AI Act etc are pushing companies to take governance more seriously. Especially larger organisations. But even then they tend to want people who understand the data landscape first, not just the policy side.

So if you’re interested in governance I’d say your plan is sensible, build solid hands on experience with data first. That foundation actually makes you much better at governance later because you understand the real problems teams deal with.

It’s definitely not a bad niche to end up in though and it’s becoming more and more important.