Senior Business Intelligence Analyst

Salary: £47,389 to £50,253 with progression to £56,535 per annum

Newcastle University is a great place to work, with excellent benefits. We have a generous holiday package; plus the opportunity to buy more, great pension schemes and a number of health and wellbeing initiatives to support you.

Closing Date: 12 July 2026

Who are we?

This role sits within the Business Intelligence, Analytics & Insights team, part of Strategic Planning & Change at Newcastle University. The directorate leads on business and market intelligence, policy insight, and the University’s strategic planning and change portfolio.

The Role

You will act as the technical lead for the development and delivery of institutional dashboards, reports and modelling tools, covering a rich and complex range of higher education data including student, staff, education, research and external benchmarking information.

Working collaboratively with teams across the University, you will co-design high quality products that inform senior leadership decision-making. Your expertise in data governance will support continuous improvement in the quality, consistency and transparency of data, analytics and insight.

This is an exciting opportunity to shape how data and insight are used across the institution with your work directly influencing university strategy, planning and change initiatives.

This is a full-time permanent position.

What about you?

You will have strong skills in data visualisation, analytics and statistics, alongside experience of bringing together distributed teams of specialists. Crucially, you will bring significant vocational experience working confidently with senior stakeholders in higher education or similarly complex organisations, translating data into clear, actionable insight.

We are particularly interested in people who are creative, curious and passionate about data, and who want to help shape the future of business intelligence provision at Newcastle University.

How to apply

To apply, please upload a CV and cover letter. In your cover letter, outline how you meet the knowledge, skills and experience criteria set out in ‘The Person’ section below.

As part of the shortlisting process, applicants will be required to complete an eSkill assessment. Details of the assessment will be sent to all candidates once the vacancy has closed.  

Interviews will take place the week commencing 17th August and be held in person. It will include an exercise to be prepared in advance.

Please contact Rebecca Taylor, Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics & Insight (rebecca.taylor@ncl.ac.uk), if you have specific questions about the role. Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications, we may not be able to respond to general introductions.

Key Accountabilities

• Contribute to the review and development of the University BI Strategy, and deliver BI, technical, and policy/process improvements to advance the overall University level of BI maturity
• Lead on the design and delivery of automated strategy and management information dashboards in the University Strategic Insights Portal to provide relevant, timely, accurate, and high-quality information and insights to senior management
• Have responsibility for evaluating institutional reporting dashboard use metrics, key user reviews and feedback and lead on the delivery of continuous improvements to data quality and analysis and insight provision
• Act as technical lead in the delivery of institutional data analysis, modelling and visualisation projects to enhance the availability and accessibility of critical information and insight aligned to university strategic priorities
• Lead on the design and delivery of a suite of training on dashboard and insights use to advance institutional data literacy and facilitate data-informed decision-making
• Proactively monitor developments in the broader BI landscape and HE data, identifying opportunities to further BI maturity at the University. Promote best use of latest advancements in data analysis and modelling techniques and software
• Prepare institutional strategic insight reports, leading on the analysis and interpreting key information to provide reasoned insight and evidence-based recommendations as required for a range of stakeholders
• Collaborate with colleagues in business intelligence roles across the University to identify opportunities to enhance reporting efficiency and quality. Lead on the development of key information and reporting tools for strategic and operational management information provision and data quality review
• Contribute as a technical expert to the development and delivery of a new Strategic Data Governance (Quality) Framework. Work in partnership with data and system owners and the Office of the Chief Technology Officer to identify improvements/requirements to inform future-state data models and input to development of an institutional enterprise data dictionary and agreed metric definitions
• Deliver quality assurance reviews and ensure compliance of BI dashboards, reports and ad hoc projects with agreed reporting standards. Ensure use of the standards in the Strategic Insights Portal and promote use across the university analytics and insights community
• Provide technical leadership and management for more junior members of the BI, Analytics & Insights team and play a leading role in the Analytics & Insights Community across the organisation, enhancing knowledge and understanding of data governance and delivering improvements to data literacy across the organisation
• Deputise for the Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics & Insights as required, contributing to the overall development of maturity of Business Intelligence, Analytics & Insight at Newcastle University

The Person

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Experience of identifying information requirements and delivering information, insights, and recommendations to meet organisational requirements
• Experience of coordinating the development of dashboards and strategic analysis in higher education or a similar large complex organisation
• Experience of producing reports including contextual analysis and data-informed recommendations for senior leaders and communicating complex issues and data, to a range of stakeholders in an accessible and inclusive manner
• Demonstrable experience of ensuring good data governance, and a strong understanding of data quality, data protection practices and information security, data-related regulatory requirements
• Significant experience and advanced skills in visualisation software such as Power BI and experience and expertise in statistical or programming languages such as Python or R
• Extensive, demonstrable vocational experience in statistical analysis and data visualisation, working with large, complex relational datasets
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including negotiating, influencing and relationship building demonstrated through experience of coordinating and working with multiple distributed teams
• Demonstrable experience of strategic analysis such as predictive analytics, scenario modelling, or trade-offs
• Knowledge of Higher Education datasets (desirable)

Attributes and Behaviour

• Team-worker who builds effective internal and external relationships, with colleagues in distributed roles and with external organisations
• Confidence and belief in evidence-based data analysis, highlighting trends and patterns in data and challenging assumptions, beliefs and decisions with clear arguments and perspectives, including in situations where the data and insights are challenged
• Excellent communicator with highly developed interpersonal and verbal, written and presentation communication style and approach
• Able to work under pressure in a planned and structured way to effectively deliver high quality products to time. Highly organised and able to prioritise work with multiple customers, balancing conflicting demands
• A proven ability to work independently and use initiative to develop innovative and effective solutions to complex problems. Understands and identifies key issues from complex or conflicting data and different perspectives of stakeholders
• Strong attention to detail, spotting errors and ensuring accurate information. Uses and develops systems and tools to ensure records and audit trails are clear and up-to-date and ensures others are aware of and compliant with process and systems

Qualifications

• A graduate (or equivalent) plus extensive relevant vocational experience in data analytics, data visualisation, statistics, business intelligence or a related discipline, in line with the requirements of the role

Newcastle University is a global University where everyone is treated with dignity and respect.  As a University of Sanctuary, we aim to provide a welcoming place of safety for all, offering opportunities to people fleeing violence and persecution.

We are committed to being a fully inclusive university which actively recruits, supports and retains colleagues from all sectors of society.  We value diversity as well as celebrate, support and thrive on the contributions of all of our employees and the communities they represent.  We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams, we believe that success is built on having teams whose backgrounds and experiences reflect the diversity of our university and student population.

At Newcastle University we hold a Gold Athena Swan award in recognition of our good employment practices for the advancement of gender equality.  We also hold a Race Equality Charter Bronze award in recognition of our work towards tackling race inequality in higher education REC.  We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role as part of the offer and interview scheme.

In addition, we are a member of the Euraxess initiative supporting researchers in Europe. 

Requisition ID: 29450

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