Lead Business Analyst

Salary: National ranging from £55,800 to £80,000 and London £60,900 to £90,000

Do you have a proven track record in ensuring business outcomes are articulated and understood? Are you keen and interested in developing people in business analytics functions?

The team/ department

Within the Change Directorate, our Departmental Change Teams (DCT) work closely with business areas to deliver business change activities in support of technology, regulation, process and behavioural changes. DCTs are made up of key change disciplines such as business change, project management and business analysis.

The Lead Business Analyst sits within one of the three DCTs within the Change Directorate and works closely with the Business Analysis Manager of that team. The role holder will have significant experience in delivering business analysis on complex projects and programmes, to a high standard. They will also be adept at delivering business analysis and business outcomes through a team of BAs on a single programme/portfolio, and able to provide support, direction and quality assurance to the team. The role is primarily delivery focused, supporting our high profile sub-portfolios of work, with a limited amount of people management (1-3 direct reports).

The EMO, ESG & International (EEI) Change Department is seeking an experienced Business Analyst to join the team and, in the first instance, guide Business Analysis across a key sub-portfolio of work – Strengthening Wholesale Markets & Market Abuse (SWMMA). SWMMA is a high-priority public commitment for the FCA and encompasses key government initiatives to drive excellence within UK wholesale markets including the FMI Sandbox and EMIR Refit.

What you will be doing (the role)

• Defining the business analysis approach for critical programmes and projects in alignment with the FCA Business Analysis (BA) Framework, ensuring that BA output on the project is fit for purpose, represents value for money, is correctly sized and is delivered on time

• Facilitating the identification of and documenting the business requirements and working with colleagues from the sponsoring business area and our technology partners to agree suitable solutions

• Completing BA deliverables, or guiding the work of other BA's within a Business Analysis workstream on large and complex programmes, producing comprehensive and accurate documentation (e.g. process mapping, data flow diagramming), facilitating workshops with the business utilising a variety of business analysis methods embracing GAP analysis, requirements gathering and validation

• Quality assuring BA deliverables completed by others

• Establishing and maintaining agreement between the business customer and solution provider on requirements including traceability management across the full project lifecycle

• Fostering innovation and collaboration, be a key contributor to the BA Practice, supporting the ongoing development of the BA Framework and practice members, mentoring junior staff, and building capability within the Practice

What you will get from the role

• Exciting opportunity to be at the heart of making the FCA a data led regulator of the future

• Working on innovative and technology focused change, using data, intelligence and digital solutions to improve our decision making and reduce harm within financial services

• Part of a strong and effective community of practice that has regular engagement, events and is constantly striving to improve the BA profession

• Dedicated personal development planning and encouragement to become professionally certified business analysts, with organisation support and plenty of career development opportunities that are supported

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 28 days holiday per year

• Private healthcare with Bupa

• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35).

• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary

• Income protection

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.

The skills and experience you will have

Minimum

We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, should they meet the minimum criteria for a role.

• Proven experience in managing BA workstreams, guiding the activities of other BAs, and personally completing business analysis deliverables on programmes

• Successful track record of working on complex projects and programmes involving extensive business change

• Demonstrated experience with agile and waterfall project lifecycles within a structured environment, with exposure to collaborating with third-party application development partners

Essential

• A proactive thinker with strong influencing skills, knowing when to act on key issues that require escalation or support from the BA authority team

• Adept at leveraging excellent written and oral communication skills to ensure clear translation of business requirements into functional outcomes

• Strong business acumen, able to quickly understand the content and business knowledge required, supporting the business through the requirements gathering, design, and testing phases

• Innovative thinker, questioning existing processes and seeking creative solutions to business problems

• Ability to guide delivery through others, with previous experience in task-managing the work of other business analysts on large programmes, and managing business analysts

About the FCA

The FCA regulates the conduct of nearly 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found here.

The FCA's Values & Diversity

Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.

The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our technical specialist role.

Flexible working

We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.

Multi-location

As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.

Useful information

Applications for this role close at 23:59 on 17th July 2024

This role is graded as Technical Specialist - Corporate

Got a question?

If you are interested in learning more about the role, please contact:

For internal applicants, please contact Sara Holland at Sara.Holland2@fca.org.uk

For external applicants, please contact Ifrah Azam at Ifrah.Azam@fca.org.uk

What to expect from our interview process

The assessment process will consist of a screening call with the Hiring Manager. If successful, you will then be invited to attend a case study and competency based interview.

Application support

We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.

If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.

Please note that all applications must be submitted through our online portal, applications sent via email will not be accepted.