Workforce Analytics Lead in Northampton

University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) is seeking a Workforce Analytics Lead to deliver high-quality workforce intelligence that supports operational delivery, workforce planning and strategic decision-making across the Trust. This senior specialist role will lead on transforming complex workforce, medical and financial data from systems such as ESR, rostering, recruitment, temporary staffing and finance into clear, actionable insight for senior leaders, Divisions and Boards. You will develop integrated dashboards and reports, provide expert interpretation and narrative, and support assurance reporting, service redesign and workforce sustainability. Working closely with colleagues across People Services, Finance, Digital and operational teams, you will act as the Trust's subject matter expert for workforce analytics, ensuring high standards of data quality, governance and consistency. You will be educated to Master's level or have equivalent experience, with significant experience of workforce analytics in a complex organisation, ideally the NHS. Strong analytical capability, experience of presenting complex data to senior stakeholders, and advanced data visualisation skills are essential.

Main duties of the job

The Workforce Analytics Lead is a senior specialist role across UHN responsible for delivering a high-quality, integrated workforce analytics and intelligence service across the Trust. The postholder will lead the transformation of complex workforce, staffing and pay and financial data into clear, actionable insight to support operational delivery, workforce planning, operational planning and strategic decision-making, including the interpretation of national, regional and local guidelines. The role plays a critical part in enabling workforce planning and service redesign through advanced analytics, forecasting and triangulation of workforce data across all staff groups. A key focus of the role is the integration of data from ESR, rostering systems, recruitment platforms, temporary staffing systems, Finance (inc PFR) and medical workforce sources to provide a single, coherent view of workforce supply, demand, performance and cost. The role will also support the development of robust assurance reporting to provide confidence in workforce performance, risks, and delivery against plan. Working in partnership with colleagues across People Services, Finance, Digital, ESR, Rostering, Temporary Staffing, Recruitment, and Medical Workforce teams, the postholder will ensure workforce and financial data are translated into meaningful intelligence that supports evidence-based decision-making and effective operational planning across the organisation.

Job responsibilities

• Lead the delivery of a comprehensive workforce analytics and reporting service across all staff groups.
• Develop and deliver integrated reporting that triangulates data from ESR, rostering systems, recruitment systems, temporary staffing platforms, medical workforce and financial data sources, including production of PWR, to support operational planning, inform workforce decision-making, and contribute to assurance reporting.
• Produce high-quality dashboards and reports using tools such as Power BI, QlikView/Qlik Sense and ESR reporting tools.
• Translate highly complex, multi-source workforce data and analytical outputs into clear, actionable insights that inform and influence strategic decision-making by Boards, Committees, and operational leaders maintaining credibility and objectivity when presenting sensitive or challenging findings.
• Provide interpretation and narrative alongside data, ensuring reports drive understanding, challenge and action.

Workforce Performance and Intelligence

• Develop and monitor workforce KPIs across all staff groups, including but not limited to: Vacancy and recruitment performance, Roster fill rates and workforce deployment, Bank and agency usage and Medical staffing indicators (rota gaps, locum usage, job planning metrics).
• Provide insight into workforce cost pressures, including agency spend, pay leakage and inefficiencies.
• Identify trends, risks and system pressures through integrated workforce analysis.
• Support operational and senior leaders with tailored insight to inform performance improvement.

Workforce Planning Insight and Support

• Enable workforce planning decisions through timely, accurate and triangulated workforce intelligence.
• Provide high-quality workforce intelligence to support the annual workforce planning cycle, including analysis of workforce supply, demand, establishment, vacancies and deployment across all staff groups through rostering activity, recruitment pipelines, temporary staffing usage and medical workforce data.
• Deliver forward-looking analysis, forecasting and scenario modelling to support both short-term operational workforce requirements and longer-term strategic workforce planning activity.
• Support Divisions and corporate teams by providing clear interpretation of workforce plans, ensuring decisions are informed by robust, integrated workforce intelligence and evidence-based insight.
• Produce expert analytical outputs to inform workforce planning activity, service redesign and organisational decision-making across the Trust and wider system.

Medical Workforce Analytics

• Provide specialist analysis and reporting on the medical workforce, including establishment, job planning, rota activity, vacancy levels and locum usage.
• Develop integrated insight linking medical staffing systems, ESR, rostering, recruitment and financial data.
• Work collaboratively with Medical Staffing and/or Medical Directors Office (or equivalent People Services functions depending on organisational structure) to ensure accurate interpretation and consistent reporting.
• Highlight risks, inefficiencies and opportunities to improve sustainability and reduce locum dependency.

Recruitment, Vacancy and Workforce Supply Insight

• Provide detailed analysis of vacancy trends, recruitment performance and workforce pipeline activity.
• Support the Deputy Head of People Planning with high-quality insight into time to hire and workforce gaps.
• Link recruitment performance to workforce deployment and temporary staffing usage.
• Identify opportunities to improve recruitment efficiency and reduce reliance on temporary staffing.

Temporary Staffing, Rostering and Workforce Deployment

• Analyse bank and agency usage, including cost, utilisation and trends.
• Integrate rostering data with substantive workforce, vacancies and recruitment activity to assess workforce efficiency.
• Provide insight into roster fill rates, escalation patterns and workforce gaps.
• Identify opportunities to improve workforce deployment and reduce premium staffing costs.

Data Integration, Quality and Governance

• Ensure workforce data from multiple systems is integrated, aligned and consistently defined.
• Work in partnership with ESR and system leads to improve data quality and governance.
• Develop and maintain standardised workforce definitions and reporting frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with statutory, mandatory and internal reporting requirements.
• Promote data accuracy and a single version of the truth across workforce systems.

Strategic Insight and Decision Support

• Provide analytical support for workforce transformation, service redesign and productivity initiatives.
• Contribute to the development of workforce policies, service redesign and transformation initiatives through the provision of expert workforce intelligence, forecasting and analytical insight.
• Use benchmarking and comparative data to identify workforce optimisation opportunities.
• Support strategic and divisional planning through evidence-based insight rather than operational ownership.
• Present highly complex analysis in a clear, accessible and influential way for senior stakeholders.

Leadership of Workforce Analytics Function

• Act as the Trusts subject matter expert for workforce analytics, reporting and insight, providing highly complex information, adapting communication styles to ensure that non-workforce experts understand the information being presented.
• Lead development of innovative analytical approaches, including automation and self-service reporting.
• Build analytical capability within the team, ensuring resilience and continuous improvement.
• Maintain strong collaborative relationships across People Services, Finance, Digital, ESR, Rostering, Recruitment and Medical Workforce teams.
• Coordinate the collection, prioritisation and delivery of mandatory and ad hoc workforce data requests, adapting requirements in response to organisational needs.

Risk, Governance and Projects

• Identify and escalate workforce risks through data analysis and insight.
• Plan and lead workforce analytics and reporting projects, including system enhancements.
• Ensure compliance with data governance, audit requirements and ESR standards.
• Contribute to regional and national workforce analytics initiatives where required.

Additional Responsibilities

• Deputise for the Deputy Head of People Processes as required.
• Build and maintain effective working relationships in line with Trust values.
• Undertake additional duties commensurate with the banding of the role.

Person Specification

Education, Training and Qualifications

• Educated to Masters Degree or equivalent experience in data analytics, HR information, workforce management, health informatics or related field.
• Evidence of ongoing professional development in analytics or workforce intelligence.

Knowledge and Experience

• Significant experience in workforce analytics, HR information or health informatics.
• Experience working with large, complex datasets across multiple systems (ESR, rostering, recruitment, finance).
• Experience producing Board-level dashboards, reports and workforce intelligence.
• Experience interpreting and presenting highly complex data to senior stakeholders.
• Experience working in a complex organisation (preferably NHS or healthcare).
• Significant experience of working with stakeholders and external partners eg NHSBA.
• Experience of NHS Workforce Policies & Reporting Standards.
• Experience of interpreting and analysing complex financial information and aligning financial insight with workforce metrics to support operational planning and performance monitoring.
• Experience of medical workforce analytics (job planning, rota analysis, locum usage).
• Experience supporting workforce transformation or service redesign.
• Experience in automation or advanced analytics development.
• Experience of temporary staffing and recruitment systems.

Skills

• Expert understanding of workforce metrics across all staff groups, including medical staffing.
• An understanding of the context of the NHS, its challenges and related workforce/resourcing issues.
• Advanced analytical and data visualisation skills (Power BI, Qlik or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of workforce planning principles and how analytics supports them.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, with the ability to translate complex and sensitive information, including challenging messages and unwelcome findings, into clear, constructive insights that support informed decision-making by senior and non-technical audiences.
• Strong understanding of data governance, quality and reporting standards.
• Ability to interpret and present highly complex workforce data in clear reports to a variety of stakeholders, including senior leaders and non-specialist audiences ensuring clarity, relevance, impact and achieve collaborative understanding.
• Strong computer skills along with accurate keyboard skills.
• Able to work independently within tight deadlines effectively managing own time and time of others, including managing conflicting priorities and delegating tasks.
• Knowledge of NHS workforce systems, policies and frameworks.

Key Competencies/Personal Qualities and Attributes

• Ability to influence decision-making through data and insight.
• Ability to remain professional and composed when presenting contentious or high-impact findings, including where there may be differing views or organisational pressures.
• Strong problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
• Frequent requirement to manage multiple and competing priorities, deadlines and urgent or ad-hoc requests from senior stakeholders, while maintaining sustained concentration on complex workforce analysis and responding to emerging organisational needs.
• Collaborative working across multiple professional groups.
• Works with a high degree of autonomy on highly complex problems, requiring advanced analytical judgement and attention to detail over prolonged periods.
• Requires sustained concentration, including prolonged use of Visual Display Unit (VDU) equipment, to analyse, interpret and present complex data within tight and competing deadlines.
• Must be able to travel to other bases within UHN and across Northamptonshire under reasonable speed and efficiency.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Contract

Permanent

Working pattern

Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working, Home or remote working.