Data Analyst - External Relations - 104445 - Grade 6 in Birmingham

Position Details: External Relations. The role is based at the University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK. Salary: Full time starting salary is normally in the range £33,002 to £35,608 with potential progression once in post to £39,906. Grade: 6. Full Time, Permanent. Closing date: 27th May 2026.

Role Summary: This is an exciting opportunity for a data analyst to contribute as we develop our use of data reporting, enhancing our understanding of how to improve the enquirer, applicant, and student journey. As a team player you will thrive in a collaborative environment where we share ambition, innovation, openness, and responsibility to achieve our goals. You will build strong relationships with colleagues across the institution, developing analysis and reporting work, and delivering outputs to colleagues across the University. Working closely with the Market Insight team, colleagues from elsewhere in External Relations, and from IT Services, you will support and develop the team’s ability to rapidly and accurately gather insight from data. This is a hybrid role requiring an average of three days on campus each week.

Main Duties:

• Develop an understanding of the enquirer, applicant and student journeys, how the key points in these journeys are captured by our IT systems and other datasets, and contribute ideas to improve data capture.
• Collate, maintain, and develop our library of essential internal and external data, and the analysis and reporting derived from it. This includes data from UCAS and HESA, admissions, CRM (Dynamics) and survey systems.
• Use tools such as Microsoft SQL Server, Snowflake, PowerQuery, Python or R for data management and analysis.
• Support colleagues in developing and maintaining data models, data lakes, and contribute to development of the data warehouse where appropriate.
• Extract, transform and load data as necessary to prepare it for analysis and reporting, including automating workflows and pipelines.
• Create, maintain, and edit reports using Tableau and/or PowerBI for both expert and lay users, with appropriate visualisations such as enquirer, admissions and survey data.
• Interpret, report and present on the data contained in those reports.
• Proactively offer ideas and advice to develop and improve the way we deliver insight.
• Develop a close working relationship with enabling and dependent departments across the university, including IT Services and Business Intelligence, and our external suppliers.
• Comply with data protection regulations and related University policies.
• Promote equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.
• Support the University’s sustainability agenda through resource‑efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience:

• Educated to Degree level (or equivalent qualifications) in Maths, Statistics, MORSE, Data Science, Information Systems or similar, or relevant technical qualification and relevant experience.
• Extensive proven practical and technical experience in a similar role is also acceptable.
• Strong understanding of applied statistics, data analysis and storytelling from data.
• Strong understanding of the principles of databases and data analytics.
• Proficiency in SQL and Python.
• Excellent organisational and time‑management skills with real attention to deadlines and detail.
• Ability to prioritise and simplify stakeholder requirements.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure and deliver to targets.
• Analytical mindset with a creative, innovative approach to problem solving and energy to drive change.
• Resilience to deal with and work around the limitations of legacy systems, and ability to adapt to the team’s migration from old to new systems.
• Ability to develop close working relationships and build the trust of colleagues across the University.
• High standard of communication.
• Comfortable working alone or in a small team, sometimes with little supervision.
• Ideally, a passion for learning and an understanding of Higher Education.
• Knowledge of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010 and how to actively ensure that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

Informal enquiries to Paul Ashby, email: p.ashby@bham.ac.uk.

Use of AI in applications: We want to understand your genuine interest in the role and for the written elements of your application to accurately reflect your own communication style. Applications that rely too heavily on AI tools can appear generic and lack the detail we need to assess your skills and experience. Such applications will unlikely be progressed to interview.

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy.