Data Insight Analyst (Contract)

OVERVIEW

The leading financial regulatory company in the UK is looking for an experienced Data Insight Analyst.  You will have a rare opportunity to understand and shape the workings of the financial sector at a time of considerable change.  You will be able to help design your own kit by developing the right shopping list of data tools we need.  This position also benefits from flexible work arrangements and dedicated study time to explore new ideas.

BACKGROUND

The company published its Data Strategy in September 2013 and made a commitment to approach delivery through iterative proofs of concept.  The first proof of concept has just been delivered, which successfully managed to source, integrate, store and query a number of external data sources in a small dedicated standalone environment.

Due to the success of this first delivery, there is a need for an additional Data Insight Analyst to work on the proof of concept to work with new datasets to solve problems and generate insights.

The proof of concept team is small and uses a range of agile delivery techniques to implement solutions quickly and effectively.  The team is new and learns a great deal from trying out and delivering on ideas.  We want this iterative delivery approach to continue with the emphasis being learning from doing.  The outputs of the work on the POC team are then migrated into an environment that can be accessed by front line users.

WHAT DOES THIS JOB INVOLVE?

At the highest level, the job involves working with data to solve a range of problems and answer a range of questions in pursuit of our objective to make financial markets work well so consumers get a fair deal. 

Specifically, we want you to help us:

- Translate business needs into technical requirements and implementation
- Work with all parts of the proof of concept delivery team to identify analytical requirements and develop approaches for solving these within the proof of concept
- Proactively develop new analyses and insights to help us understand what is happening in the UK Credit Card and Crowd Funding Market in the context of the company as a consumer-based regulator
- Design hypothesis tests, oversee execution, and perform rigorous statistical evaluation of the results to produce actionable insights from our data
- Generate a passion for data and data visualisation
- Create and interpret data, and break it down to gain insight to benefit our front line business
- Support the key relationships with 3rd party data and analytics software partners, in concert with aligned partner functions

REQUIRED SKILLS:

ESSENTIAL:

- Industry experience & great ETL skills using a variety of languages (eg SQL, R, Python, Scala) and big data tools (eg Hive, Scalding, Pig, Elastic MapReduce)
- Knowledgeable about data visualisation, ie be able to use data visualisation tools to represent data in meaningful ways
- An advanced user of excel for analytical purposes
- Able to continuously adapt to the data needs in a rapidly changing environment. This would include quickly and efficiently integrating new data sources using various methods
- Experienced in handling large, real-world sources of data
- Hands on practical experience with data mining and analysis
- A highly analytical mind and the ability to understand complex data  
- Possess expert technical and non-technical communication skills

DESIRABLE:

- A degree in computer science or related discipline
- A strong academic background in mathematics
- Industry experience with Java and Javascript
- Industry experience with data visualisation tools
- Experience of working in an Agile environment
- Thorough understanding of information retrieval and data mining

WHAT WILL I GET FROM THE ROLE?

You will join a fun environment with smart people and a great opportunity to shape the future direction of data exploitation capabilities for the company.  You will have a great opportunity to make a meaningful impact on how the company does data,' unconstrained by a Legacy.  You will have a rare opportunity to understand and shape the workings of the financial sector at a time of considerable change.  You will enjoy a unique insight into the full spectrum of the financial services industry, with the opportunity to have a real impact, whilst working collaboratively towards a common goal alongside a range of internal and external stakeholders.