Senior BI & Analytics Manager

About us

At Exchange for Change, we are building something the UK has never had before. Working across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we are designing and delivering a Deposit Return Scheme from the ground up, creating a system that helps reduce litter and waste by encouraging people to return their empty drinks bottles and cans for recycling. We are not for profit, industry led, and driven by purpose. A national movement with a clear mission. No bottle unreturned. No can left behind. This is not just another job. This is a rare opportunity to do meaningful work, shape a landmark national programme, and help deliver lasting positive impact for people, businesses and the planet alike.

Your role

As Senior BI & Analytics Manager, you will define and lead Exchange for Change’s approach to business intelligence and analytics, ensuring people across Exchange for Change and the wider scheme ecosystem can access, understand and act on trusted information. You will shape how data is turned into insight and better decisions, from core reporting and compelling visualisation through to self-service analytics, deeper diagnostic analysis and, as our data and needs mature, predictive analytics and optimisation. You will help the business identify where more advanced analytical techniques can create value and shape how those opportunities are taken forward. You will work closely with teams across the business and external stakeholders to understand the questions they are trying to answer and the outcomes they want to improve, translating these into the right analytical approach rather than simply responding to requests for reports. You will also provide functional leadership for Exchange for Change’s wider analyst community, connecting analysts embedded across the organisation and establishing common tools, standards and ways of working. You will build a strong analytics profession that shares knowledge, develops capability and gets maximum value from EfC’s data. This is a greenfield opportunity to define what great BI and analytics looks like from the outset. Success will be measured not by the volume of reports or analysis produced, but by their adoption, impact and the decisions and improvements they enable. You’ll be based at our Milton Keynes office (30min from Euston) with the option to work from home 2/3 days per week.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and deliver Exchange for Change’s BI and analytics strategy, spanning reporting, self-service, insight, advanced analytics and predictive capability.
• Shape Exchange for Change’s approach to reporting, visualisation, self-service and analytical products, balancing common solutions with different user needs.
• Partner with regulators, Operations, Finance and other stakeholders to move from business questions and scheme KPIs to insight and analytical opportunities.
• Lead Exchange for Change’s approach to diagnostic and advanced analytics, helping the business understand what is happening, why it is happening and where performance can be improved.
• Identify and shape opportunities for forecasting, prediction and optimisation, determining where more advanced analytical methods can create meaningful value.
• Own the design and evolution of Exchange for Change’s BI and analytics environment, ensuring information is intuitive, accessible and designed around users.
• Champion an outcome-focused approach where analytics is measured by adoption, decisions and business impact, not analytical output.
• Establish and lead Exchange for Change’s analytics community, creating common standards, tools and ways of working across embedded analysts.
• Develop analytical capability across Exchange for Change, including the appropriate use of modern analytical methods and AI-enabled analytics tools.
• Partner with Data Platform & Products, Technology and delivery partners to ensure the data, semantic layer and tooling support BI through to advanced analytics.
• Commission and work effectively with specialist data science/analytics partners where deeper technical capability is required.
• Build strong relationships across Exchange for Change and the wider ecosystem, becoming a trusted partner who helps people use data to improve scheme outcomes.

What success looks like

• People across Exchange for Change and the wider scheme ecosystem can easily access trusted information and use it confidently to make better decisions.
• Reporting and analytics are designed around real user needs, with adoption and business impact used to determine whether they are successful.
• Self-service becomes the normal way of answering common business questions, reducing dependence on centrally produced reports while maintaining consistent definitions and trusted metrics.
• Exchange for Change has a coherent analytics community, with analysts across the organisation working to common standards, sharing knowledge and reusable assets, and benefiting from clear functional leadership.
• Exchange for Change develops a strong analytics culture in which data is actively used to understand performance, diagnose problems and identify opportunities to improve scheme outcomes.
• Exchange for Change progressively moves beyond understanding what happened to anticipating what will happen and identifying the actions most likely to improve outcomes.
• Advanced analytics is applied where it creates genuine value, with specialist capability brought in where appropriate.

About you

You are an experienced BI and analytics leader who combines strategic thinking with a strong understanding of how people consume and use information. You bring:

• Significant experience leading BI, analytics or insight capabilities in a complex organisation.
• Experience defining and implementing analytics strategies spanning reporting, self-service, insight and more advanced analytical approaches.
• Strong expertise in dashboard and information design, with a clear point of view on what makes analytics intuitive and useful.
• Experience using diagnostic, predictive or advanced analytics to solve business problems, with the judgement to know when these approaches add value.
• Comfortable shaping forecasting, predictive modelling and optimisation opportunities, without necessarily needing to be the person building the models.
• Experience leading analysts and building analytics communities, standards and capability.
• Exceptional ability to get underneath stakeholder requests, moving from “I need a report” to “what are we trying to understand, decide or improve?”
• Strong understanding of metrics, semantic layers and consistent business definitions.
• Experience partnering with data science, engineering and technology specialists, including external delivery partners.
• A pragmatic, curious and outcomes-focused mindset, comfortable building a new capability in an ambiguous environment.

The opportunity

Work that makes a difference - and a place where you can too. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to help establish a scheme of national importance, working with purpose-driven colleagues and partners to deliver visible, real-world impact. You’ll contribute directly to meaningful environmental and social change and in return, we support and reward our team through a range of benefits and initiatives, including:

• Competitive base salary
• Bonus scheme
• 34 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays, additional holidays for length of service
• Flexibility with holidays. You may work on a local public holiday and take an alternative day off, giving you the freedom to celebrate the days that matter most to you.
• 5% employer pension contribution
• Life Insurance: Cover of 4 times base salary
• Private Medical Insurance: Includes GP access and an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for wellbeing support
• Income protection
• Family Leave: Maternity, adoption, parental, and paternity leave policies will be developed to be progressive and inclusive.
• Hybrid Working: 60% office or field-based and 40% home-based, with some flexibility according to business and personal needs.