Data Business Consultant

We’re First Central Insurance & Technology Group (First Central for short), an innovative, market-leading insurance company. We protect the things customers love so they can get on with what matters to them in life.

Data drives us. It fuels our outstanding distribution, finance, technology and legal services. Our underwriting skills are built on data expertise; it creates the insights we need to give the right cover to the right customers at the right price. But, it’s the people inside and outside our business that power us. They make us stand out, help us succeed. We’re ambitious. We’re growing. We’ve won awards.

Are you passionate about data? We’ve an exciting opportunity for a Data Business Consultant to come join our cutting-edge technology and data teams located in Salford Quays, Manchester, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, and Guernsey.

The Data Business Consultant is a key role within our high performing Data & Analytics team. You’ll be responsible for leading collaborative, partnership-based engagements with business stakeholders across First Central to detail how data and analytics will support the achievement of their business objectives and drive valuable business outcomes. Operating with a broad outcome-based brief, the Data Business Consultant will challenge established thinking and stimulate new ideas and approaches to accelerate the effective utilisation of data across our business.

Could you fit the bill? We love flexibility and hybrid working to include 1 day a week in the office for team collaboration and 4 days from home depending on business requirements, but of course, it’s your choice - if you prefer to be in the office more - that's good with us too.

Core skills we’re looking for to succeed in the role:

• Collaborative Innovator: You’ll have proven experience as a consultative data business partner who collaborates with business stakeholders to capture and shape broad business outcomes into data solution ideas, opportunities and initiatives.
• Ownership and Responsibility: You'll thrive on taking ownership and responsibility and enjoy working in a fast-paced organisation where change is a constant.
• Outstanding Communication Skills: You’ll possess proven experience as a data and analytics ‘translator’ ensuring clear, effective communication with the data teams and business stakeholders to maintain alignment and transparency.

What’s involved:

• You’ll be responsible for partnering with business stakeholders to capture and shape broad business outcomes into data solution ideas, opportunities and initiatives.
• You’ll be comfortable challenging perceptions and embedded thinking, to ensure that data requirements move the business forward and achieve broad outcomes.
• You’ll facilitate workshops and deliver presentations to capture requirements and generate feedback.
• You’ll act as an internal consultant, interpreting user requests and where appropriate, making suggestions for better/alternative ways of obtaining and presenting the required information.
• You’ll be responsible for developing clear, robust and accurate data specific epics, user stories and requirements.
• You’ll drive continual improvement in data & analytics working practices, bringing agile and lean practices into all aspects of requirement work, seeking to optimise flow and reduce wait time wherever possible.
• You’ll become a trusted Data SME for the data subject areas and business domains in which you work.
• You’ll agree business data definitions as part of the requirement process, that inform both the technical design and support the implementation of the data governance standards.
• You’ll create data mapping artefacts, including definition of transformations required, to inform the design and build process.
• You’ll create wireframes, mock-ups and POCs as part of the requirements process to validate needs and feasibility.
• You’ll work alongside data engineering to quickly address points of clarification, iterate requirements, and facilitate business engagement where necessary.
• You’ll support and deputise for the Product Owner in leading the delivery of product outcomes.
• You’ll coach and mentor Data Business Analysts, and Business Analysts in other parts of the business around data specific requirements analysis methods and practices.
• You’ll actively support the testing process, ensuring traceability of requirement to solution, and helping to co-ordinate and deliver user acceptance testing.
• You’ll adhere to the Company values at all times and encourage others to demonstrate these.
• You’ll ensure compliance with company and other relevant standards/regulations at all times.

Experience & Knowledge:

• Strong experience of taking a broad ambiguous brief and putting shape, structure and approach around it.
• Proven experience of influencing and managing stakeholders at all levels, with the ability to communicate key messages across multiple areas of the business.
• A strong background in data requirement elicitation using agile practices.
• Broad understanding of data visualisation, data engineering and data governance, with deep experience in one or more.
• Experience working in high-demand environments delivering to targets & tight deadlines.
• Significant experience of planning and facilitating workshops of varying sizes.
• Experience of analytics platforms such as PowerBI, Tableau, Qliksense etc.
• Background in proposing data solutions to meet business needs and creating data epics and user stories as part of agile delivery methods.
• Experience of coaching and mentoring others.
• Ideally previous experience in working in a consultancy or data product delivery environment.
• Experience of collaboration and agile software management tools such as Confluence, Azure DevOps, Jira.
• Good grounding in agile software change practices, ideally in a data function.

Skills:

• Proactive, self-starter with an entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to work autonomously with little direction, owning and demonstrating sole accountability for delivery.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to engage, influence and inspire stakeholders and colleagues to drive collaboration and alignment.
• Strong oral communication skills: you are skilled at presenting and explaining technical information in a non-technical way.
• Strong service focus and a passion for delivering high-quality products to your stakeholders.
• Ability to build deep, trust-based relationships with colleagues.
• Versed in functional/non-functional requirements gathering and definition.
• Able to confidently act as interface between delivery / technical and non-technical colleagues.
• Excellent planning, time management and organisation skills with proven ability to prioritise, organise and work in a fast-paced environment to deliver results on a timely basis.
• Highly Influential, with proven experience of effective negotiation.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Behaviours:

• Outcome focused and results driven.
• Self-motivated and enthusiastic.
• Embraces, embeds and incorporates the Company values.
• Pro-active, and comfortable taking the initiative.
• Resilient and flexible with the ability to work iteratively.
• A positive attitude with a focus on how outcomes might be achieved.
• Focused on improvement of processes and oneself.
• Desire to work in a fast-growing, fast-paced environment.
• Life-long learner – you have a drive to learn and continually develop your skills and abilities.

What can we do for you?

People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full.

Intrigued? Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what we’re offering, so feel free to get in touch.

We’re happy to discuss flexible working during the recruitment process.

As part of our Women in Finance Charter pledge, we've committed to having 30% of women in leadership roles by the end of 2023.