Lead Credit Risk Analyst in Cardiff

Admiral Money is seeking a Lead Credit Risk Analyst to play a key role in managing and evolving the credit strategy of our Motor Finance portfolio. This is a broad, high-impact role in which you will take ownership of credit policy, referral strategy, portfolio monitoring and underwriting optimisation, ensuring we effectively manage credit risk exposure while supporting sustainable growth. The role combines strategic direction with hands-on analytics in a fast-moving, innovative environment.

About us: Admiral Money is the dynamic lending arm of Admiral Group, offering personal loans, motor finance, and homeowner loans since 2017. We're building something special for our customers and are looking for curious, driven individuals ready to learn, take on challenges, and make an impact. We're proud to be a certified Great Place to Work for over 25 years, with recognition for Women and Wellbeing. Our inclusive culture empowers everyone to Be You.

Key Responsibilities:

• Leads the end-to-end credit policy and underwriting strategy for Motor Finance, optimising lending criteria, scorecards, and asset risk parameters.
• Ensures decisioning strategies balance growth, automation, and risk appetite while staying aligned with regulatory requirements.
• Continuously identifies opportunities to enhance processes, credit controls, and the use of new data sources and tools.
• Owns and improves the referral and application funnel strategy, driving higher automation without compromising risk oversight.
• Enhances customer and dealer journeys by leveraging data effectively and balancing manual underwriting, fraud controls, and automation to deliver strong customer outcomes.
• Monitors key portfolio performance metrics (approvals, arrears, defaults, recoveries, profitability) to identify risks and opportunities.
• Conducts segmentation and trend analysis, ensuring the portfolio remains within risk appetite and funding thresholds.
• Provides clear, timely insights and reporting to senior stakeholders and governance forums.
• Uses SQL/Python to extract, analyse, and interpret data to inform and improve credit strategies.
• Produces high-quality MI, strategy papers, and committee updates, partnering closely with Data and BI teams to refine reporting and deliver actionable insight.
• Represents Credit Strategy in business forums, acting as SME for key projects including new products, systems, and channel enhancements.
• Supports the implementation of new data integrations and decisioning capabilities.
• Provides leadership and guidance within the team, effectively prioritises workloads, and fosters a culture of continuous improvement.

Skills and Experience:

Essential Requirements:

• Minimum 3 years' experience in a credit risk or credit strategy role within consumer lending.
• Experience managing or optimising credit policy within a regulated environment.
• Strong understanding of underwriting strategy, portfolio monitoring and risk controls.
• Hands-on analytical capability with SQL and/or Python and Excel.
• Proven ability to interpret data and translate insights into commercially sound recommendations.
• Experience writing board/committee papers and presenting to senior stakeholders.
• Strong communication and influencing skills across all organisational levels.
• High attention to detail with an analytical and problem-solving mindset.
• Self-motivated, organised and adaptable in a fast-paced environment.
• Motor finance experience.

Desirable Requirements:

• Experience with new product launches, system enhancements or channel development projects.
• Exposure to embedding new products, services or data integrations into live decisioning.
• Experience refining MI, reporting capabilities or partnering with Data/BI teams.
• Ability to challenge existing practices and drive continuous improvement.
• Experience balancing manual underwriting, fraud controls and automation.

Admiral: Where You Can We take pride in being a diverse and inclusive business. It's a place where you can Be You, and show up as you are. We're committed to fostering a people-first culture where everyone is accepted, supported, and empowered to be brilliant. You can, Grow And Progress at a pace and direction that suits you, Make A Difference for our customers and each other, and Share in Our Future with all colleagues eligible for up to £3,600 of free shares each year after one year of service. Everyone receives 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) when they join us, increasing the longer you stay with us, up to a maximum of 38 days (including bank holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to an additional five days of annual leave. We're proud of our people-first culture. In fact, we've been recognised as a Great Place to Work for Women, a Great Place to Work for Wellbeing, and an overall Great Place to Work for over 25 years! We're fully committed to making sure your progression is not slowed or halted by barriers related to race, gender, age, sexuality or any of the protected characteristics. Our fantastic benefits make sure our colleagues have a great work-life balance.

As a Disability Confident Leader, for candidates with a disability or long-term health condition, that opt into the Disability Confident scheme, we'll invite a fair and proportionate number of applicants that meet the essential requirements of the role to the first stage of our selection process. If you need any adjustments or support with your application or during the recruitment process, just let us know. Please do email eden.davies39@admiralgroup.co.uk or contact us on 07970136735. This number is dedicated to supporting candidates that require reasonable adjustments or support during the application process.