Data Analyst - External Relations - 104445 - Grade 6

Position Details

External Relations

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

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

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

Department overview 

External Relations is the division responsible for delivering the University of Birmingham to the world and prides itself in seizing opportunities that will enhance the profile and reputation of the University. We communicate with many different audiences in order to build purposeful relationships internally, locally, nationally and internationally. We enable those who wish to apply to study on undergraduate and postgraduate courses to make informed choices. 

The Market Insight team provides market research, insight and related expertise to External Relations and the wider University. This includes qualitative and quantitative research, through use of focus groups, surveys, admissions and CRM system data, UCAS and HESA data products. They also work with a range of external providers for the supply of commissioned and off-the-shelf reports. 

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 our ambition, innovation, openness, and responsibility to achieve our goals. You will build strong relationships with colleagues across the institution, building your understanding of the data and systems landscape, developing our 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. Having a passion for turning data into insight, you will take forward the extensive data reporting landscape on which we rely, refining or redefining it as required. 

This is a hybrid role requiring an average of three days on campus each week.

Main Duties

• Guided by colleagues across External Relations and elsewhere, 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 as to how our current systems may be better used to capture the appropriate data in the most usable way.
• 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, and data from 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 where appropriate to development of the data warehouse.
• Extract, transform and load data as necessary to prepare it for analysis and reporting either by you or by colleagues, including automating workflows and pipelines.
• Create, maintain, and edit reports using Tableau and/or PowerBI for both expert and lay users, using visualisations as appropriate, including 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.
• Promotes equality and values diversity, acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture. 
• Supports 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 - where no equivalent qualification is held, extensive proven practical and technical experience in a similar role will be required.
• Strong understanding of applied statistics, data analysis and telling stories 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.
• An analytical mind set with a creative, innovative approach to problem solving and the energy to drive change.
• The resilience to deal with and work around the limitations of legacy systems, and to adapt to the team’s migration from old to new systems. 
• The ability to develop close working relationships and build the trust of colleagues across the University.
• A 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 in day-to-day activity in own area that those with protected characteristics are treated equally and fairly.

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

View our staff values and behaviours here

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. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.