EM Nov 26 Consulting Operational Excellence - SA in London

Join PwC’s growing cross-sector practice, supporting clients across Banking, Insurance, Asset & Wealth Management, Private Equity, Central and Local Government, Defence, and Energy & Utilities, an area of exciting transformation and strategic focus! As a key member of our evolving BSCO team, Senior Associates have a unique opportunity to contribute to impactful projects in process redesign, productivity, cost reduction, and cutting-edge AI-driven innovation that directly enhance our clients’ operational and financial performance.

We are seeking a dynamic and talented Senior Associate to join our BSCO team who is passionate about driving innovation and meaningful change across large, complex operations. This role offers an exciting opportunity to build your Operational Excellence expertise, work directly with clients and contribute to shaping the future of operations across our priority sectors.

Key Responsibilities

• Deliver key activities and defined work packages within high-impact operations transformation projects, supporting process excellence across our priority sectors.
• Apply PwC methodologies alongside analytics, AI and intelligent automation tools to support the design of innovative, data-driven solutions that improve client operations and ways of working.
• Apply structured analysis to operating models, processes and operational performance to identify opportunities for efficiency improvement, productivity gains and sustainable cost reduction.
• Produce high-quality client deliverables, including analysis, process maps, presentations, recommendations and supporting business cases, communicating complex findings in a clear and practical way.
• Build strong and trusted working relationships with clients and internal teams, working collaboratively to understand client challenges, deliver high-quality project outcomes and contribute to sustainable change.
• Collaborate openly across teams, sharing insights and supporting continuous learning.
• Contribute to the ongoing development of our Operational Excellence practice while continuing to build your own technical, consulting and sector expertise.
• Support and coach more junior team members where appropriate, helping to maintain high standards of delivery and creating an inclusive and collaborative team environment.
• Contribute to proposals and client presentations through research, analysis and the development of compelling Operational Excellence perspectives and value propositions.

The skills and experience we’re looking for:

• Practical consulting experience or equivalent operational background across one or more of our core industries: Financial Services (Banking, Insurance & Asset and Wealth Management), Private Equity, Central and Local Government, Defence, and Energy & Utilities.
• Exposure to operating model transformation, including areas such as operating model design, organisational effectiveness, service delivery models or sourcing strategies.
• Experience analysing operational processes and identifying opportunities to improve efficiency, productivity, customer outcomes and operational performance.
• Experience transforming operational data into actionable insights that support opportunity identification, decision-making and benefit tracking, for example using Excel, Power Query and Power BI.
• Experience applying Operational Excellence and process improvement techniques to analyse and improve client or business operations.
• Exposure to Lean, Lean Six Sigma or equivalent methodologies is desirable.
• Experience supporting teams to improve productivity and ways of working, for example through improved operating rhythms, structured problem solving, performance insights and continuous improvement.
• A collaborative mindset and commitment to personal growth and professional development, actively seeking feedback and opportunities to build technical, sector and consulting capability.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to structure complex problems, interpret information and translate analysis into clear and practical recommendations.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the confidence to work directly with client stakeholders and contribute effectively to workshops, interviews and working sessions.
• Clear and articulate writing skills, with experience developing high-quality presentations, reports and other client deliverables.
• An interest in emerging technologies and how AI, intelligent automation and analytics can be applied to transform operations and ways of working.