Location: London/UK - Hybrid working

Salary: starting from £40,000 + bonus + benefits

Working pattern: Full-time (40 hours per week)

About us

IMPOWER is the country’s largest independent management consultancy, focused exclusively on helping our public sector clients improve services for their local communities - and getting the best use of the public pound.

We work with clients in local and national government to improve how public services are delivered. From children's and adult's social care, to healthcare and place-based economic development, we help drive transformation of services that drives better outcomes for the public.

We understand that impactful and meaningful change cannot be solved sustainably through traditional, linear project management approaches. Our unique EDGEWORK methodology provides our clients with the skills, techniques and mindset to collaboratively solve the complex problems they face – and we have shown that IMPOWER’s way of approaching change has provided better outcomes for service users that help deliver our clients’ ambitions.

Our team of highly skilled consultants and analysts use applied behavioural science, insight, creativity and a talent for building strong relationships to transform public service delivery. If you have a passion for improving public services and the energy to tackle some of our clients’ most difficult challenges, we hope you will be inspired to join our team.

About the team

The Applied Analytics Practice represents a critical function of the IMPOWER business, providing exceptional data analytics to deliver meaningful, actionable insights to our clients as an integral part of and informing the delivery of our work with IMPOWER’s clients.

The team, currently 8 people, leverage a wide range of tools, from Excel to AI, but most importantly curiosity and a passion to identify insight that can drive positive change for our clients. We provide a range of support to our wider client teams, for example, demand and capacity modelling in relation to existing or new public services and NLP based sentiment analysis to identify priority areas for change in citizen experiences.

About the role

Our clients are influenced by a range of political, social and economic pressures which means the quality of the information they hold and the insights they can draw from it has never been more important when trying to find solutions. We often receive large data sets from clients which can contain anomalies for a range of reasons such as it being derived from multiple data sources, errors in system migrations, poor training and consequently user error. We therefore often need to gather and clean the data before we can start analysing it to identify themes or generate hypothesis around the root cause of a problem. This is key in enabling us to deliver meaningful, long-term, sustainable solutions.

As an analyst, you will be responsible for utilising data tools and techniques to clean the data, generate reports, create dashboards and visualisations that “tell a story” of the insights derived from the data. These valuable insights will support the decision-making and business operations individual client teams and of the wider IMPOWER team.

Examples of how our analytical work supporting projects include:

• Benchmarking local authority performance in different system areas.

• Producing cost and demand forecasts that help clients understand their current and future drivers of cost and the levers they can consider to maximise use of budgets.

This is not a data engineering role. Some basic data engineering is required as described, but At the heart of the skills for success in this role are curiosity to want to know more about the data and the appetite to dig deeper into the data using a range of tools to find the insightful patterns and stories it can tell us and our clients.

Key responsibilities

• Collaborate with internal stakeholders across IMPOWER to determine the specific data and analytical needs for any given project. Identify and understand the data sources required to generate the desired insights.

• Request relevant data from appropriate sources using established templates and controlled processes. Be able to highlight any possible barriers to accessing the data as soon as possible.

• Perform basic data cleansing activities to ensure data quality and to quickly identify potential biases and missing data. Utilise existing tools such as Excel models and 3rd party applications, to support analysis and diagnostic elements of projects.

• Create bespoke analyses using tools like Excel, python and R to extract meaningful insights and explain those insights in clear language being conscious of accuracy and reliability and impact of any proposed conclusions.

• Collaborate with the wider business to develop broader and collective insights and ideas using existing data to support thought leadership and proposition development.

• Manage and configure existing models to suit the requirements of different clients.

• Translate data analysis results into presentations, dashboards and visualisations using tools like PowerBI to effectively convey generated insights.

About you

• Bachelor’s Degree in a related field, such as Maths, Data Science, Statistics and/or Computer Science or relevant experience in a junior level role (internship or post graduation first role or LGGP). Please note this is not a developer or engineering role but one requiring strong data manipulation and analysis skills.

• Be able to use data to draw insights and to support idea generation to facilitate discussion and debate. You will have a natural curiosity that makes you want to explore the data, identify new lines of thought and raise questions to ensure we explore all avenues to support us finding the right solutions for our clients.

• You should be comfortable with ambiguity, incorrect or incomplete data sets and being able to bring that together to produce meaningful information.

• Proficiency in data analysis tools, such as Excel, is critical, and other data visualisation software such as PowerBI, is desirable.

• Problem-solving skills and ability to think critically and analytically.

• Knowledge of data cleansing and transformation techniques. Experience of data transformation tools, such as Power Query, is desirable.

• Familiarity with data management and data governance principles.

• Ability to work independently and as part of a fast-paced project team.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills. Be willing to contribute to discussions and share your ideas – you will be one of our subject matter experts!

• Detail-oriented and highly organised.

• Local government or health sector knowledge (desirable)

About our offer

• Competitive salary, with a personal and company-based performance bonus

• 28 days annual leave (+ bank holidays), with buy/sell/rollover scheme

• Pension scheme

• Life assurance and Income Protection

• Medical and Dental Insurance

• Gym Subsidy contribution, including to online fitness subscriptions

• Parent, guardian, and carer friendly policies

• Regular training and development opportunities

• Paid volunteer/CSR days

• Regular team socials and celebrations (even virtual ones!)

About our commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

At IMPOWER, whilst we are committed to being an equal opportunities employer - our commitment to facilitating a safe, inclusive working environment doesn’t just stop at an Equality and Diversity Policy.

We are an organisation that is actively working towards anti-discrimination of any kind against race, gender, gender identity, sexuality, disability, age, religious belief, parental or carer commitments, marital status or civil partnership. We do this through our D&I strategy, constant review of our policies and procedures, via our recruitment processes, and training and development of our staff.

We have signed up to the Disability Confident scheme and we are committed to ensuring our application and interview processes are inclusive for all candidates. Please email Recruitment@impower.co.uk if you have any questions or require any adjustments.