Head of Analytics

Head of Analytics

London (Hybrid)

£140,000-£160,000 + Bonus

This is a high-impact opportunity to lead a centralised Analytics & MI function through a major transformation, with a particular focus on AI adoption, commercial insight, data strategy and decisioning; you'll have significant exposure to the C-suite and the opportunity to shape how analytics is used across a fast-moving, data-rich financial services business!

The Company

This is an established and growing financial services business undergoing significant transformation across its analytics, decisioning and AI capabilities. The business is investing heavily in its data infrastructure and decisioning capabilities, while looking to move its analytics function beyond traditional reporting and towards actionable, commercially focused insight. You'll join at an exciting point in that journey, with the opportunity to influence the analytics strategy and build a modern, AI-enabled function.

The Role

As Head of Analytics, you'll report directly to the Chief Analytics Officer and lead a centralised Analytics & MI function supporting stakeholders across the business, including Finance, Marketing and the C-suite. The role blends strategic leadership and hands-on delivery, giving you the opportunity to influence the direction of the function while remaining close to the analytics itself. You'll lead and develop the existing Analytics & MI team, while also line managing the Decision Engine Manager and overseeing the migration to a new decisioning platform.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Lead and develop a centralised Analytics & MI function
• Build a high-performing, insight-led analytics culture
• Develop managers and analysts and support future team growth
• Shift analytics from traditional reporting towards actionable commercial insight
• Improve data storytelling and senior stakeholder engagement
• Manage and prioritise a shared analytics workstack across Finance, Marketing and C-suite stakeholders
• Lead the adoption of AI tools within analytics, including LLM and coding tools
• Establish governance, best practice and optimisation around AI usage
• Oversee the development of scalable gold-layer datasets
• Drive reporting automation using modern data technologies such as Snowflake and Power BI
• Improve data structures, governance and reporting processes
• Line manage the Decision Engine Manager and oversee the migration to a new platform
• Influence business-wide analytics, data and decisioning strategy
• Act as a senior analytics voice across the organisation

A key part of the role will be understanding how AI can be applied commercially, rather than simply having theoretical knowledge of the technology. You'll be expected to understand the evolving AI tooling landscape, its advantages and limitations, and how it can make analytics teams faster and more effective.

Your Skills & Experience

You'll be an experienced Analytics leader with a strong track record of managing teams and influencing senior stakeholders.

I'm particularly interested in candidates with:

• Proven leadership experience across Analytics, MI or Data Analytics
• Experience managing and developing analytics teams
• Strong experience turning data into actionable commercial recommendations
• Proven ability to influence C-suite and senior stakeholders
• Strong hands-on technical capability, ideally including SQL and Python
• Experience working with modern data stacks such as Snowflake, Power BI or similar
• Experience improving data structures, reporting and analytics processes
• A strong understanding of data strategy and analytics transformation
• Practical experience using AI/LLM tools within analytics
• A good understanding of the wider AI tooling landscape and its commercial applications
• Experience embedding AI, automation or advanced analytics into business processes

Financial Services experience is strongly preferred, particularly candidates who have worked across areas such as lending, credit, banking, fintech or risk. Candidates with experience managing Risk Analytics or Risk teams would be particularly relevant. The client are also open to strong candidates from other data-rich, commercially driven sectors such as insurance, airlines or technology, provided you're comfortable operating in a fast-moving and relatively unstructured environment.

The Benefits

• £140,000 - £160,000 salary
• Bonus - up to 20%

How to Apply

If you're interested in this opportunity and have the analytics leadership, financial services/risk experience and practical AI exposure we're looking for, please apply now. For more information, or to discuss the role confidentially, please contact Adam Osborne at Harnham.