Data Analyst Developer - Strategic Planning and Performance Insight - 106157 - Grade 7

Position Details

Executive Support

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £36,636 to £46,049 with potential progression once in post to £48,822

Grade: 7

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 27th September 2026

We will be shortlisting and interviewing candidates throughout the duration of this advert and reserve the right to close the post early if we are able to shortlist enough candidates. You are advised to submit your application as soon as possible.

There is also a Grade 6 position available

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

The University of Birmingham is a global institution working within a diverse and vibrant City, offering an inspiring education to our students, and undertaking critically important research. We are a place of open, critical thinking, and the creation, sharing and dissemination of knowledge. Professional Services put students at the heart of all they do and enable an exceptional educational experience. They provide outstanding support to our researchers and help the University to grow its influence regionally, nationally, and globally. They ensure the University’s resources are used wisely, manage and improve the infrastructure which sits at the heart of the institution, and support decisions to be made quickly and based on sound evidence. Our Birmingham Professional programme operates across the University, supporting colleagues to network and collaborate, offering opportunities to learn and develop, contributing to the delivery of the University’s objectives, and helping everyone to understand the broader context within which we work.

Department overview

The Data and Analytics Team is responsible for delivering key elements of the University's Data Strategy, alongside providing analytical capability, data management expertise and reporting services for a wide range of business-critical activities.

Situated within the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight Office, and part of the Executive Support Division, we have a close working relationship with IT Services. As an office, we work with colleagues across the University to connect a range of perspectives to support senior leaders in making well-informed and evidence-led decisions. We aim to provide trusted advice and expertise, insightful analysis, and robust data.

Our activity can be categorized into four broad segments:

• Data governance, capability and reporting. Our enabler, providing technical data and systems management, and ensuring quality, accurate and accessible data.
• Policy, regulation and compliance. Seeking to understand and interpret the implications of the external environment on the University.
• Institutional planning. Understanding and advising on where we want, and need, to go as a University.
• Performance Insight and Strategy management. Understanding whether the University is on track to deliver to its strategic priorities.

Role Summary

The University of Birmingham’s digital and data landscape is undergoing major transformation. One of the underpinning elements of the Data Strategy is to move our legacy systems to cloud solutions and enhance data literacy and the overall data culture of the institution. In this role you will play an integral part in supporting the implementation of the Institutional Data Strategy through Snowflake adoption and Power BI migration, as well as data related changes to our internal organisational structure. If you are looking to develop your experience of supporting impactful change and are passionate about demonstrating the value of data and analytics in driving institutional progress, this is the role for you!

Reporting to the Data and Systems Manager, and working in close partnership with colleagues across the department and IT Services, you will be a technically focussed analyst with experience of reporting tools like Power BI and Tableau. You will develop the necessary foundations to provide a data and analytics capability that enables users to make quicker, more autonomous, and better-informed decisions. As part of the University's data transformation programme, you will help develop and maintain cloud-based analytics solutions using Snowflake, dbt and modern data engineering practices. Working closely with colleagues in IT Services and across Planning and Performance Insight, you will support the delivery of robust data pipelines, reusable data models and enterprise reporting solutions that underpin strategic planning, forecasting and institutional performance management. You will provide additional support for several key institutional systems utilised heavily by the Planning Office (primarily Cognos Planning Analytics, Simitive) and support the delivery of student number forecasts.

The role requires proactive collaboration with colleagues across the Planning and Performance Insight Office, as well as across Academic areas and Professional Services (e.g. Registry, Careers Network, IT and HR). You will be expected to communicate effectively on technical subjects as well as strategy in writing and in person. You will contribute to the exploration and adoption of emerging technologies, including AI-enabled solutions, to enhance analytical capabilities, support business processes and complement enterprise reporting activities.

This will be a huge opportunity for the right person to deliver suites of reports from our new Power BI Reporting Platform. The successful candidate will be a highly skilled, delivery-focussed, and technically competent hands-on developer who thrives on working in a varied and challenging environment. You will be confident in engaging and influencing colleagues at all levels and will act flexibly and pragmatically to seek and implement solutions.

Main Duties

The expected focus of this role for the initial 1-2 years of appointment are likely to be within the following areas: Data Analytics, Data Visualisation, Reporting Release and Deployment, Modelling and Design, Business Intelligence (Tableau and Power BI) Methods and Tools and Relationship and Stakeholder Management.

Key Duties include:

• Develop and maintain enterprise reporting and analytics solutions in Power BI and Tableau, ensuring outputs remain aligned to evolving business requirements and institutional priorities.
• Undertake quantitative analysis of institutional data and external data releases using Snowflake, SQL and related technologies, translating complex datasets into meaningful insights for decision-makers. Work with colleagues to anticipate and produce rapid response analyses when required for institutional briefing.
• Maintain enterprise reporting data pipelines and refresh schedules, using tools such as Alteryx and Snowflake. Maintain proactive relationship with IT Services to ensure the availability of trusted and high-quality institutional data.
• Support fee setting and student recruitment target setting processes in Cognos TM1, including data transformation, validation and quality assurance activities.
• Administer and support end user experience within the Simitive Workload Allocation Model, and lead on reporting delivery and enhancements.
• Provide technical support for the annual Management Information Unit change process.
• Provide training, advice and guidance to colleagues across the institution to promote increased understanding of and engagement with available institutional information and analytical services for the University.

Additional Duties:

• To undertake line management responsibility (as required) for Junior Data and Analytics Developers including objective setting, staff appraisal, review, and career development for these staff.
• Promote equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
• Support the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

We are committed to developing a clear development pathway for our technically focussed staff working within our data and analytics space. We use the SFIA framework as a mechanism for demonstrating skills and competencies and have mapped the main duties of this role to the SFIA framework.

Data Analytics

• Applies advanced analytical and statistical techniques to analyse data and develop reports, extract meaningful insights and develop predictive models.
• Conducts end-to-end data analysis, defining data requirements and ensuring data integrity.
• Communicates complex findings, insights and recommendations to stakeholders in an understandable manner, influencing strategic decisions.
• Contributes to the development of data analytics processes and standards. Identifies opportunities for improving data analytics practices.
• Leads the implementation of data analytics solutions. Translates business needs into analytics requirements and identifies data-driven solutions.

Data Visualisation

• Presents findings and data insights in creative ways to facilitate the understanding of data across a range of technical and non-technical audiences.
• Advises on the appropriate use of data visualisation for different purposes and contexts to satisfy requirements, developing plans showing how the identified user needs will be met.
• Leads exploration of new approaches for data visualisation.
• Ensures the appropriate use of data visualisation tools and techniques, updating institutional guidance and templates to reflect changing best practices.

Reporting Release and Deployment

• Assesses and analyses reporting release components. Provides input to scheduling of releases.
• Participates in reviews of own work and peer reviews of colleagues' work.
• Develops and executes test plans and test cases in coordination with testers, identifying improvements in requirements or design processes to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of testing.
• Ensures releases meet defined quality, security and compliance standards.
• Communicates release plans, progress and outcomes to stakeholders.

Modelling and Design

• Elicits and analyses requirements — both functional and non-functional.
• Ensures customer requirements and priorities are accurately reflected.
• Facilitates input from stakeholders, provides constructive challenge and enables effective prioritisation of requirements.
• Creates and maintains relevant documentation for reporting models and reports.

Business Intelligence (Tableau & Power BI) Methods and Tools

• Provides advice and guidance to support the adoption of methods and tools and adherence to policies and standards.
• Contributes to the development of analytics policies, standards and guidelines.
• Creates and updates the documentation of methods and tools.

Relationship and Stakeholder Management

• Implements stakeholder engagement including handling of problems and issues to resolution (taking ownership) and producing corrective actions and lessons learned where applicable.

Emerging Technology Monitoring

• Maintains awareness of opportunities provided by new technology to address challenges or to enable new ways of working.
• Within own sphere of influence, works to further organisational goals, by the study and use of emerging technologies and products.

Organisational Capability, Knowledge Management, and Training

• Supports Communities of Practice.
• Publicises and promotes a catalogue of learning and development resources.
• Facilitates sharing, collaboration and communication of knowledge, sharing ideas and examples of existing practices.
• Contributes to identifying new areas of capability improvement within the organisation in relation to data literacy.
• Prepares and delivers learning and training activities for a variety of audiences.

Programming/Software Development

• Applies agreed standards, tools, and security measures to achieve well-engineered outcomes.
• Takes technical responsibility for all stages and/or iterations in a reporting development project.
• Provides advice, guidance and assistance to less experienced colleagues as required.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Essential

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) or relevant technical qualification and considerable relevant experience. Where no equivalent qualification is held, significant practical relevant experience and expertise in a series of more demanding roles will be required demonstrating the conceptual understanding required.
• In depth up to date specialist understanding and experience in a relevant scientific, technical or IT specialism.
• Microsoft Power BI certified or extensive report writing experience using business intelligence/ visualisation tools such as Power BI, Tableau and SAP BOBJ, with relevant hands-on experience.
• Experience of creating data-rich dashboards, writing DAX expressions, Power Query and implementing row-level security in Power BI.
• Experience in extracting and transforming datasets for reporting and/or analysis using tools such as SQL, R, Alteryx, Snowflake or dbt etc.
• Understanding of user experience in Power BI reporting.
• Experience of data architecture and modelling (e.g. facts and dimensions, materialised views etc)
• Proven experience in developing and implementing best practices and development standards.
• Proven experience of undertaking thorough and detailed analysis and using those findings to develop recommendations, presenting outcomes in a clear and concise manner.
• Proven experience of ensuring data quality and accuracy.
• Understanding of emerging technologies, including AI-enabled solutions, and their potential to enhance analytics, improve business processes and support enterprise reporting and decision-making.
• Ability to see the big picture technically and communicate insights in business terms to everyone in the organisation.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills for translating data insights into concise executive summaries and presentations.
• A high level of numeracy coupled with a proven ability to accurately analyse and interpret complex datasets from multiple electronic sources.
• A customer-orientated approach to service provision.
• Analytical and systematic approach to problem-solving.
• Ability to work calmly and systematically in a busy environment and to meet agreed deadlines.
• Good team player, with an ability to contribute outside their principal area of work in a constructive and helpful manner.
• Knowledge of data protection considerations.
• An appropriate manner in dealing with senior managers, staff, students, visitors, clients and other contacts.
• Awareness of departmental and institutional relationships and an ability to work across teams and activities.
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, and how to actively ensure in day to day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Desirable

• A good awareness of the issues facing UK higher education and how they affect university support services.
• Experience with the Python programming language or similar.
• Experience of supporting junior developers.
• Proven experience of working in agile teams using methodologies such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Experience of Power BI integration with a cloud warehouse.
• Experience of Cognos Planning Analytics.
• Experience of Simitive WAMS.

Informal enquiries to Thomas Hennessy, email: t.hennessy.1@bham.ac.uk

View our staff values and behaviours here

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.