Senior Data Analyst (Grade E3)

Application Deadline: 23 April 2026

Department: Corporate Services

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Edinburgh - Hybrid

Reporting To: Head of Data Analytics

Compensation: E3 Grade £49,938 to £58,134. Civil Service Pension. Flexible Working Hours. Hybrid Working.

Description: To act as an analytical partner, working proactively with colleagues to shape questions, determine and run appropriate analysis, interpret evidence and provide high-quality insight that informs strategic decisions across SFC and the tertiary sector. The postholder will combine expert analytical capability with strong consultancy skills to ensure analytical effort is aligned to organisational priorities and drives evidence-based decision making. Interviews will be held online on Friday 8 May 2026.

Key Responsibilities:

• Work with colleagues to shape analytical commissions, clarify decision needs and ensure alignment between analysis and strategic priorities.
• Support prioritisation of analytical effort by helping stakeholders understand trade-offs, resource implications and evidence gaps.
• Build innovative and effective approaches to solve analytical problems and communicate clear and relevant results and methodologies.
• Develop a range of reports and dashboards that utilise the latest statistical and analytical methods.
• Provide high quality insight and analysis, working collaboratively with policy and operational teams to ensure that analytical insight is translated into practical, actionable recommendations.
• Translate analysis into straightforward and compelling stories and communicate these effectively to a wide audience with different business interests and skill sets, through written and live presentations.
• Line manage, develop and provide advice and support to other analysts across the team.
• Establish strong and proactive working relationships across SFC, offering consultancy, challenge and advice to ensure analytical insight is integrated into policy development.
• Lead the analytical contribution to cross-organisational initiatives, ensuring coherence and consistency across workstreams.
• Represent the Council as required on committees and working groups and to internal and external stakeholders.
• Contribute to strategic intelligence gathering across the tertiary system, identifying emerging trends, risks and opportunities to inform SFC’s planning and reform activity.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise:

Essential:

• Strong consultancy skills with the ability to frame problems, guide stakeholders through analytical options and influence decision making.
• A team player who will improve the development of evidence-based policy across the organisation.
• Ability to work in an ambiguous and fast-paced environment, effectively prioritising analytical work aligned to organisational strategy.
• Effective oral, written and presentation communication skills and excellent IT skills including Microsoft Office.
• Proficient in SQL, ideally T-SQL.
• Proficient in R and/or Python programming and experience of developing content in business intelligence tools, ideally Power BI.
• Ability to interpret and explain complex information to audiences with varying degrees of expertise.
• Degree level education (SCQF level 9) or equivalent experience, in a subject with a substantial quantitative content.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of the further and/or higher education sector.
• Experience of using the Microsoft Azure toolkit including Synapse Analytics and DevOps.
• Experience of building reproducible analytical pipelines.
• A practical understanding of data governance, including information security classifications, retention, lineage and access controls.
• Advanced Power BI capability (workspaces, publication, RLS, embedded content, dataflows).
• Qualification in statistical analysis.
• Previous line management experience.

Terms and Benefits:

• Normal full-time hours of work are 35 per week. We will consider flexible working arrangements.
• A flexi-time system is in operation.
• Annual leave entitlement of 30 days pro-rata, plus public and privilege holiday entitlement of 13 days pro-rata.
• A flexible approach to hybrid working, giving you flexibility to work from home anywhere in the UK for some of the time while also maintaining regular in-person contact with colleagues.
• Annual pay review: approved within the framework of the Scottish Government’s Public Sector Pay Policy and negotiated with our recognised trade union, Unite.
• Salaries are reviewed annually in April for employees who commence employment prior to 1 October in the preceding year.
• Eligibility to join the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• Support for continuous professional development.
• Support for health and wellbeing, including generous occupational sick pay, free access to confidential advice and support through our 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme.
• Support for travel to and from work, including a salary sacrifice cycle loan scheme, cycle storage and shower facilities, an interest-free loan for bus or rail season tickets and free office car parking for employees on a first-come basis.
• We are happy to discuss part-time or compressed hours to suit a candidate’s circumstances.
• We will consider secondment applications for most salaried fixed-term or temporary positions and in many cases also for salaried permanent positions.