Senior Business Data Analyst

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.

Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.

Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.

We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

This senior role supports data delivery and transformation activity across business and technology teams. The role acts as a bridge between business needs and technology delivery, combining business analysis, data analysis and hands-on source-system investigation to shape practical, traceable and sustainable data outcomes.

The role holder will lead complex data analysis, challenge requirements constructively and help stakeholders align on data definitions, priorities and strategic data initiatives. They will work closely with business SMEs, Product Owners, Data Owners, data engineering teams and senior stakeholders to make sure requirements are clear, validated and ready to build.
This role is well suited to someone who can bring structure to complex data problems, communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences, and use judgement to balance business value, delivery constraints, data quality, cost and risk.

Main Responsibilities

• Lead the documentation and cataloguing of data requirements for existing and redesigned business processes.
• Lead complex data analysis to validate business requirements, including direct investigation of source systems.
• Translate data requirements into measurable business outcomes that support improved decision-making and operational efficiency.
• Assess and document upstream and downstream data flows, dependencies and interdependencies within the enterprise data architecture.
• Produce clear technical change specifications, User Stories and narratives that technology teams can build against, with end-to-end traceability.
• Interrogate and sense-check requirements from a sustainable data perspective.
• Challenge constructively and provide alternative options where requirements are unfeasible or technically costly.
• Work closely with data engineering teams to make sure requirements are accurately converted into built data products.
• Influence senior stakeholders to align on data definitions, priorities and strategic data initiatives.
• Lead data quality assessments and support the development of data-driven improvement strategies.
• Apply data governance in line with enterprise data governance frameworks.
• Build strong working relationships across business SMEs, data engineering teams and senior stakeholders.

Key Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Proven expertise combining business analysis, data analysis and data cataloguing.
• Ability to identify, document and validate complex data requirements.
• Ability to analyse source systems and data, validating information rather than relying only on stakeholder input.
• Proven expertise in Agile methodologies, writing good user stories in agile teams including validated definition of done / acceptance criteria.
• Proficient use of enterprise data platforms, semantic models and dimensional modelling.
• Working knowledge of star schemas, fact tables and dimension tables.
• Proficient understanding of data architecture principles, ETL processes and data pipeline concepts.
• Track record of data modelling, data architecture and use of data cataloguing tools.
• Proficiency in SQL for data validation and analysis.
• Familiarity with data visualisation tools and cloud based data platforms.
• Familiarity with Snowflake, Azure, Databricks and Power BI.
• Track record of translating complex data requirements into technical specifications in financial services and/or Life operations.
• Ability to translate technical data concepts into business friendly language for stakeholders up to senior leadership level.
• Strong experience working in financial services, with exposure to the Life industry and a plc environment an advantage.

Suggested Essential Skills

• Complex data requirements analysis
• Source-system investigation
• Data quality assessment
• Data governance application
• Technical specification writing
• End-to-end requirements traceability
• Data modelling and data architecture
• Data cataloguing
• SQL for validation and analysis
• Cloud based data platform awareness
• Senior stakeholder engagement
• Constructive challenge and influencing
• Practical problem solving
• Collaboration across business, data and technology teams

What we offer:

We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life, and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:

• A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).
• Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside financial wellbeing and support services to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.
• Enjoy 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays), with the opportunity to purchase up to five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.
• Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.
• Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.

To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering, visit Life at M&G

At M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.

M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.

We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying. If you need any additional support at any stage, please contact us at: [email protected]