Head Of Data - Hybrid

The Vacancy

Location: Aldgate East, London. We are a hybrid workforce and spend 40% of our time in the office.

Hours: This is a full-time position. 

The Head of Data is responsible for the delivery of high-quality Data Products, Analytics and Management Information to all FSCS and the development and implementation of the Scheme’s Data Strategy to enable FSCS to achieve our ambitious strategic outcomes.  The role holder provides the required Data capabilities to meet FSCS requirements overseeing data product development, architecture, engineering, management information reporting and data governance. Strategically planning data capabilities required to deliver the needs of stakeholders across FSCS to serve its customers and consumers today and in the future.  As a key member of the Chief Data, Intelligence and Technology Officer’s Leadership Team,  the Head of Data  may deputise for them and liaise with the Executive Team, members of the FSCS Board and Committee Chairs on key business issues.  They will assume a strategic role in the overall leadership of the Scheme as part of the Senior Leadership Community and have an important part to play in the delivery of FSCS’s strategic outcomes and governance.  They will be responsible for the leadership, strategy, communications, project delivery and operation of the Data Department, including budgetary, team management, procurement and risk management activities.

Job description:

• Recruiting, developing, and retaining an expert team of employees that support a diverse group of internal and external partners.
• Providing thought leadership in data science tools, techniques and business applications to unlock the value of FSCS’s unique data set.
• Evangelising the creative use of Data and analytics to solve business problems internally and externally
• Identifying trends in our stakeholder and regulatory family work to inform our data product development path.
• Continually looking at the new environment to challenge our assumptions around new sources of Data, potential analytics partners, tools and talent.
• Engaging with internal stakeholders to improve delivery of analytic projects.
• Engaging with the Chief Customer Officer and their team though the Cx transformation programme to support our self service vision for claim handlers, consumers and customers.
• Develop strong working relationships across the executive leadership team and their teams to define, deliver, enhance and grow data products to support FSCS strategic goals.
• Building an outstanding data-driven culture, that experiments, plays and gets results.
• Implementing a highly visual and commercial approach when delivering data science projects that engages and challenges the thinking of non-technical audiences.
• Driving our value chain in analytics from rapid in-day experiments, through to industrialised data engineering and science products.
• Challenging how we work and applying an ethical lens to what we do and how we measure impact.
• Management of the Scheme Wide Data Ownership maturity
• Develop and enable the Data Strategy covering all scheme data and consider external data assets required to fulfil FSCS goals and ambitions.
• Design, deliver and maintain data governance across the Scheme
• Assume the role of ‘Contract Owner’ and manage allocated contracts in accordance with the FSCS Contract Management Standards as described in the Procurement handbook.
• Support pre-default and contingency planning
• Work with Information Security & Data Privacy Officer to ensure all architecture, design and standards are consistent with the GDPR requirements.

Person specification

Essential

• Operate as a thought leader and visionary, with the ability to guide, influence and inspire peak performance across the function.
• Experienced leader leading in all aspects of Data management, data integration and business intelligence with proven experience building, leading and inspiring a high-performing team of Data scientists and engineers to support growth objectives.
• Significant experience in stakeholder management and design data management experience required 
• Ability to communicate at all levels with both business and technology leaders, with a strong understanding of business data requirements and technology capabilities.
• Experience of implementing an effective information governance, including data ownership model
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills including board and exec level
• Built or led a data engineering and science team and been responsible for individual career progression
• Coding background (both application and EDW)
• Understand data analysis and statistics
• Experience across the whole development lifecycle
• Understanding of advanced and emerging forms of Data-science techniques.

• Strong SQL and Python (NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, matplotlib, shap….)
• Experience with any of the major cloud computing providers: AWS, GCP, Azure

Desirable

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Statistics or related field required

• Experience solving problems in areas such as:

• NLP
• Forecasting
• Bayesian
• Reinforced learning
• Deep Learning
• Multi-variate testing

FSCS offer 26 days of annual leave, 9%+  pension contributions, private medical and dental insurance and 6 months paid maternity/paternity/shared parental leave.

We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that candidates may need during the recruitment process, and you will be asked whether you require any during your application.

About Us

For the past 21 years, FSCS has been getting customers of failed authorised financial services firms back on track.

Our strength is in our numbers. Since 2001, we have helped 6.5m customers and paid back £26bn in compensation. Over the years we have continually strived to be better, faster, and more empathetic to our customers’ needs in an ever more complex financial world. Our people have worked together to make sure we can offer protection and reassurance every step of the way, even during the toughest of times over the last two years. FSCS is an organisation that makes a difference, and in which our people truly make a difference.

We have grown from modest beginnings in 2001 to helping customers during historic events such as the 2008 banking crisis and supporting vulnerable customers during the pandemic. As a result of this success, FSCS has become increasingly respected, insightful, and influential in the regulatory eco-system. It is an exciting time in our journey as we now have an opportunity to play a bigger role in breaking the cycle of rising consumer harm and costs; by being part of a system that is about prevention rather than cure.