Head of Business Intelligence and Data

The Government Property Agency is changing the way the Civil Service works and is at the forefront of Government's transformation agenda; reshaping the relationship civil servants have with their place of work. The Agency is central to the delivery of key Government policies including moving 22,000 Civil Service roles out of London by 2030 and tackling climate change by contributing to the Net Zero agenda. To do this we are delivering a major change programme across the UK and consolidating our portfolio in order to save £1.4 Bn over 10 years.

Beyond the bricks and mortar, the GPA is about providing great workplaces for our people. Through programmes like Hubs, Whitehall Campus and Smart Working you will be in the vanguard of creating model working environments and promoting flexible working practices.

This is an ambitious and exciting task, for which we need innovative people, with strong commercial acumen, who are passionate about visualising and implementing customer needs. Launched as an Executive Agency of the Cabinet Office in 2018, we’re a relatively new department and we are growing fast so we also need people who thrive in ambiguity, can adapt quickly to change and are comfortable stepping outside of their remit to drive outcomes.

The GPA is committed to representing the communities we serve by making Diversity, Equality and Inclusion part of everything we do.

To ensure that we are always recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of talent, we are particularly inviting applications from candidates who are disabled, ethnically or gender diverse, and people who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

GPA’s data ambition is to deliver high quality, standardised, easily accessible data systems across all GPA functions that enable data flows across business processes. Data will be clearly owned, managed and maintained, it will be secure and assured, and will be created with the purpose of enabling earlier, better decisions to drive value for money. The Head of Bi & Data will be integral to helping delivery this strategy. Overseeing data governance and quality, information management, data maturity, data analytics, data architecture, data management, data integration and Data engineering and platforms. The individual will have 3 direct reports in areas of Data Governance, Data Platforms & Integrations and Data Analytics, also supporting a wider team of professionals including Data Engineers, Data Architects and Data developers. The candidate will:

• Support the delivery of GPA’s Information & Data Strategy
• Be responsible for the definition of the organisation’s data strategy
• Champion data architecture across GPA
• Set the standards and ways of working for the data architecture community
• Oversee the design of multiple data models and have a broad understanding of how each model fulfils the needs of the business
• Provide advice to project teams and oversee the management of the full data product life cycle

Be responsible for ensuring that GPA’s systems are designed in accordance with the data architecture

Key Responsibilities:

• Data operations & integration – Support the wider team that will provide all sourcing, extraction, reference, and onboarding of key data into GPA’s data warehouse and between source systems.
• Data analysis and synthesis – lead on the vision to embed new analytics initiatives that enhance user experience and decision making and be actively involved in the delivery.
• Data Governance and Quality – provide strategic direction and support to focus on delivering the highest quality data in a timely manner, supported by governance processes including data security.
• Data Platforms – able to support and understand the operations of AWS Redshift Data Warehouse as well as other industry leading data platforms to support master data management, governance, architecture and quality.
• Data Standards – Strong understanding of standards across Government and \ or within similar sectors and experience of adoption and integration.
• Data Architecture & Integration – strong understanding of data integration between systems, transactional and reference data, and leading on the design and mapping.
• Data modelling and engineering - able to produce data models and understand where to use different types of data models. Understands different tools and is able to compare between different data models.
• Programming and build (data engineering) – be able to lead by example and design, write and iterate code to support data operations. Understanding of security, accessibility and version control. Can use a range of coding tools and languages.
• Business engagement - Facilitate interactions between business divisions to optimize data usage and optimisation.
• Governance and reporting – Lead on data forums, working groups and steering groups as well as supporting the creation of Executive level reporting.