Senior Business Analyst - Trading / Retail

Expert analysis. Cross-functional collaboration. Resolving complex challenges.

Reports to: Lead Business Analyst

Department: Chief Operating Office

Contract: 12 month fixed-term contract

Hours: Full time 35 hours per week

Location: Stratford, London. Office-based with high flexibility (1-2 days per week in the office)

Visa sponsorship: You must be eligible to work in the UK to apply for this vacancy. Cancer Research UK is not able to offer visa sponsorship.

Closing date: 25 May 2026 23:55 (External) 01 June 2026 23:55 (Internal)

This vacancy may close earlier if a high volume of applications is received or once a suitable candidate is found, therefore we strongly recommend that you apply early to avoid disappointment.

If you require more time to apply as part of a reasonable adjustment, please contact recruitment@cancer.org.uk as soon as possible.

Recruitment process: Two competency-based interviews with a scenario-based exercise

Interview date: From the week commencing 25th May 2026.

At Cancer Research UK, we exist to beat cancer. We are professionals with purpose, beating cancer every day. But we need to go much further and much faster. That’s why we’re looking for someone talented, someone who wants to develop their skills, someone like you.

Cancer Research UK has an extensive technical estate that underpins the charity’s ability to deliver our vision and strategy. The Business Analysis team play an essential role in our mission by bridging the gap between our technology department and the wider organisation. The team ensure we maximise the value of all our technical resources while delivering operational transformation & management and an employee experience that enables us to be an inclusive, well-governed, agile, and sustainable organisation so that we can achieve our mission of beating cancer.

This involves championing innovation, providing analytical insight, and driving change across a range of products and services used by 4,000+ staff, 600+ shops, and thousands of supporters who raised £463m towards our life-saving research in 2023/24.

As a Senior Business Analyst, you will be assigned to a technology portfolio to deliver large/complex technology and change projects whilst rotating across a range of products. This will involve accurately analysing, capturing, and validating requirements; identifying and assessing highly beneficial solutions; and providing analysis expertise to successfully shape and deliver technical solutions and outcomes. You will partner and collaborate with stakeholders influencing across all levels of the organisation to ensure alignment with the underlying technology needs of the charity and its strategic direction.

What will I be doing?

• Delivering large/complex projects within one of our product portfolios to develop innovative and flexible business solutions, whilst driving efficiencies and harnessing shared capabilities.
• Providing business analysis and delivering the technical transformation across several workstreams/products.
• Assessing the bigger picture to manage priorities and identify potential dependencies and risks.
• Forging strong stakeholder relationships at all levels to identify and assess solutions and process improvements that meet business outcomes and provide the best cost/benefit balance.
• Developing a strong understanding of the needs of specific business areas and their strategy to influence decisions.
• Maintaining an understanding of the capabilities, processes, and services which make up the Cancer Research UK technology landscape.
• Keeping aware of emerging technologies to ensure compatible solutions are designed and existing capabilities are re-used where suitable.
• Assisting in the development of investment appraisals, providing decision support to ensure that solutions designed deliver maximum value to the charity.
• Collating, understanding, and documenting business, functional, and non-functional requirements.
• Identifying strengths and weaknesses of existing processes, suggesting areas of improvement, and challenging as needed.
• Translating business requirements into Agile epics, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Ensuring requirements are documented appropriately for use by the project team (e.g. developers, testers) according to the project methodology used (e.g. Agile).
• Partnering with departments across the charity to ensure correlation between requirements, information architecture, and user experience.
• Providing analysis expertise and leadership throughout project lifecycles.
• Contributing to the successful delivery of large/complex projects, developing practical ideas and solutions to deliver value to the business.
• Sharing expertise and best practices, contributing to analysis toolkits, and supporting the business analyst community and business process owners.
• Inputting into test scenarios, scripts, design, and execution by collaborating with customers and colleagues to ensure changes are appropriately tested and accepted.
• Partnering closely with Project Managers and Business Owners to track progress against milestones, develop plans, prioritise work, and create sufficient documentation for projects/work streams.
• Defining KPIs/SLAs to monitor the effectiveness of processes and enable greater efficiency.

What skills will I need?

• Experienced Business Analyst who has worked in medium to large multi-product businesses or within a large IT agency/consultancy.
• Business Analyst experience in a Retail/Trading environment.
• Managed multiple workstreams/products and priorities with a background in dealing with complexity and identifying potential dependencies and risks.
• Strong understanding and experience in business analysis skills, techniques, and practices (including designing and facilitating workshops).
• Strong communication and stakeholder management with a proven ability to understand stakeholder needs and influence decision-making at all levels within various contexts.
• Advanced experience in process and data modelling, and process improvement.
• Evidence of problem-solving with an ability to simplify complex problems into components and evaluate systematically to provide creative solutions.
• Commercially minded with an understanding of what Cancer Research UK is trying to achieve and the role of Delivery teams in delivering these ambitions.

Our organisation values are designed to guide all that we do:

• Bold: Act with ambition, courage and determination
• Credible: Act with rigour and professionalism
• Human: Act to have a positive impact on people
• Together: Act inclusively and collaboratively

We’re looking for people who can believe in and embody these organisation values and can use them to drive forward progress against our mission to beat cancer.

If you’re interested in applying and excited about working with us but are unsure if you have the right skills and experience we’d still love to hear from you.

What will I gain?

We create a working environment that supports your wellbeing and provide a generous benefits package, a wide range of career and personal development opportunities and high-quality tools. Our policies and processes enable you to improve your work-life balance, take positive steps in your career and achieve your personal wellbeing goals.

You can explore our benefits by visiting our careers web page.

Additional Information

For more information about working with us please visit our website or contact us at recruitment@cancer.org.uk. For more updates on our work and careers, follow us on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Our vision is to create a charity where everyone feels like they belong, benefits from and participates in, the work we do. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and cultures, in particular those from ethnic minority backgrounds who are currently under-represented.

We want to see every candidate performing at their best throughout the job application process, interview process and whilst at work. We therefore ask you to inform us of any concerns you have or any adjustments you might need to enable this to happen. Please contact recruitment@cancer.org.uk or 020 3469 8400 as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we are unable to recruit anyone below the age of 18, so that we can protect young people from health & safety and safeguarding risks.