About the role

About the Client:
Our client is a renowned organisation in their industry, committed to excellence and innovation. With a strong focus on ICT advancements, they offer a collaborative environment where your skills can truly shine. Known for their supportive culture and strategic initiatives, this is a place where you can grow and make a difference. 

About the Role:
This is a significant leadership opportunity with plenty of scope to make an impact. The Planning, Performance & Analytics function sits at the heart of statutory reporting, strategic insight, operational performance and student success measures.

The organisation is also embarking on a major data modernisation programme, moving towards Databricks and more contemporary analytics practices. As part of this shift, the current reporting landscape needs to be reviewed, rationalised and reshaped to determine what should be rebuilt, improved or retired altogether.

Just as importantly, there is an opportunity to evolve how the function delivers value. The ambition is to move beyond numbers and commentary and towards sharper insights, stronger narratives and reporting that genuinely supports better decision-making.

You’ll lead a six-person analytics team spanning reporting, insights and surveys, initially building a clear picture of the current state across reporting, processes, capability and data flows. Working closely with technology teams, you’ll help shape the adoption of Databricks and modern data practices while rationalising historic reporting and focusing the team’s effort on the work that adds the most value.

A key part of the role will be lifting the quality of insight, storytelling and executive-level reporting, while building trusted relationships with senior leaders across academic and operational portfolios. You’ll also coach and develop the team, reshape capability as the function evolves and lead change with the right balance of clarity, pragmatism and consideration, particularly where established ways of working need to shift.

If you enjoy roles where the path isn’t already mapped out, where there is genuine scope to shape the future and where leadership matters just as much as technical credibility, this is well worth a closer look.

What you will bring:

• Proven background in data, analytics, data science, or performance reporting with a minimum of 6 years
• Proven people leadership experience in a technical or analytical team 
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including executive-level engagement- calm, clear and commercially aware 
• Technically strong enough to challenge methods, outputs, and assumptions 
• Comfortable leading through ambiguity, resistance, and changing priorities 
• Able to balance strategic leadership with enough detail to know what good looks like 
• Experience in higher education, public sector, or complex regulated environments would be advantageous