Data and Systems Manager - Executive Support - 105710 - Grade 8

Position Details

Executive Support

Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK

Full time starting salary is normally in the range £46,735 to £55,755 with potential progression once in post to £62,728

Grade: 8

Full Time, Permanent

Closing date: 1st June 2025

Interviews are expected to be held in person on Friday 20th June 2025

 

Our offer to you

People are at the heart of what we are and do.

The University of Birmingham is proud to have been a part of the City of Birmingham and the wider region for over 100 years, and we are equally proud to be recognised as a leading global university. We want to attract talented people from across the city and beyond, support them to succeed, and celebrate their success.

We are committed to helping the people who work here to develop through our sector-leading Birmingham Professional programme which provides all professional services staff with development opportunities and the encouragement to reach their full potential. With almost 5,000 professional services jobs in a wide-range of functions in Edgbaston and in our campus in Dubai, there are plenty of opportunities for you to be able to develop your career at the University.

We believe there is no such thing as a typical member of staff and that diversity is a source of strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation, and debate. We warmly welcome people from all backgrounds and are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where diversity is at the heart of who and what we are, and how we work.

Supporting our people to achieve a healthy work/life balance is important both to our employees and to the success of the University and, depending on the role, we offer a variety of flexible working arrangements. We therefore welcome discussions on all forms of flexible working. In addition, you will receive a generous package of benefits including 40 days paid holiday a year, one paid day a year for volunteering, occupational sick pay, and a pension scheme. We also have three high quality subsidised day nurseries.

The University is situated in leafy Edgbaston and there are excellent transport links to our beautiful campus, including main bus routes and a train station on site. On campus we have a state-of-the-art sports centre with pool, shops, places to eat and drink, our own art gallery, museum and botanical gardens.

Find out more about the benefits of working for the University of Birmingham

Background

The Data and Analytics Team is a new team supporting the delivery of the University’s Data Strategy. Situated within the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight Office and part of the wider Executive Support Division. We have a close working relationship with IT Services. As an office, we work with colleagues across the University to connect a range of perspectives to support senior leaders in making well-informed and evidence-led decisions. We aim to provide trusted advice and expertise, insightful analysis, and robust data. 

Our activity can be categorized into four broad segments: 

• Data governance, capability and reporting. Our enabler, providing technical data and systems management, and ensuring quality, accurate and accessible data. 
• Policy, regulation and compliance. Seeking to understand and interpret the implications of the external environment on the University. 
• Institutional and College strategy and planning. Understanding and advising on where we want, and need, to go as a University. 
• Performance Insight and Strategy management. Understanding whether the University is on track to deliver to its strategic priorities. 

Role Summary

The University of Birmingham’s digital and data landscape is undergoing major transformation. Aligned with the University Digital and Data Strategies, the Strategic Planning and Performance Insight Office is further developing its systems, data, and reporting provision to ensure we remain well positioned to respond to changing internal and external needs. This role provides an exciting opportunity to shape and deliver a sector-leading data function providing high quality reports and information, focussed on student number planning and forecasting, to senior leaders across the University. If you are looking to develop your experience of supporting impactful change and are passionate about demonstrating the value of data and analytics in driving institutional progress, this is the role for you!

Reporting to the Head of Data & Analytics and working closely with the Deputy Director of Planning and Performance Insight, you will have leadership and management responsibility for the development and delivery of Planning’s data and reporting function, ensuring that our systems, dashboards and services meet institutional needs embedding the principles of the Data Strategy. You will take ownership for several key institutional systems utilised heavily by the Planning Office (primarily Cognos Planning Analytics, Simitive), and develop reporting and data solutions to support the delivery of intelligent, insightful, and informed analysis, especially student number forecasts. You will ensure that all reporting developed across the team is aligned with the University’s reporting framework, encompassing data models, data dictionary and reporting standards, as part of a comprehensive and joined-up range of information and analytical services for the University. 

The role requires proactive collaboration with colleagues across the Planning and Performance Insight Office, as well as across Academic Schools and other Professional Services Divisions (e.g. Registry, Careers Network, IT and HR). You will work in partnership with colleagues delivering the University’s Digital and Data strategies to implement standards and processes.

The successful candidate will be a highly skilled, delivery-focussed, and technically competent leader. You will be confident in engaging and influencing colleagues at all levels and will act flexibly and pragmatically to seek and implement solutions. You must have a proven ability to design, develop and implement solutions and be comfortable working with a wide range of stakeholders and functional teams to understand business needs as we embed principles and processes to support good governance and continual data quality improvements.

Main Duties

The expected focus of this role will be within the following areas: Student Number Planning (30% of role), Business Intelligence (Tableau & Power BI) Methods and Tools, Data Visualisation, Programming/Software Development, and Relationship and Stakeholder Management.

Key duties include: 

• To undertake the production of student number and fee forecasting, including technical responsibility for the delivery using Cognos Planning Analytics.
• To undertake quantitative data manipulation, analysis and scenario modelling of student population and intake and present in an appropriate format (written report, presentation, dashboard) for senior stakeholders. 
• Develop and maintain key documentation for key institutional systems, primarily Cognos Planning Analytics and Simitive.
• Provide training, advice and guidance to colleagues across the institution to promote increased understanding of and engagement with available institutional information and analytical services for the University.
• Promote the adoption of data models, data dictionary and reporting standards ensuring that reporting and analytical outputs developed across the team are aligned with the University’s reporting framework.
• Facilitate sharing, collaboration and communication of knowledge, sharing ideas and examples of existing practices to support good governance and data practices.
• Maintain awareness of opportunities provided by new technology to address challenges or to enable new ways of working through horizon scanning and engagement with cross-sector special interest groups.

Additional Duties

• To undertake line management responsibility for Junior Data and Analytics Developers including objective setting, staff appraisal, review, and career development for these staff.
• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour. 
• Support the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working. 
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

We are committed to developing a clear development pathway for our technically focussed staff working within our data and analytics space. We use the SFIA framework as a mechanism for demonstrating skills and competencies and have mapped the main duties of this role to the SFIA framework. More details about the SFIA framework are available.

Student Number Planning - Complex Modelling, Forecasting and Analysis

• Elicits and analyses requirements — both functional and non-functional. 
• Ensures customer requirements and priorities are accurately reflected.
• Plans and drives scoping, requirements definition and prioritisation activities.
• Facilitates input from stakeholders, provides constructive challenge and enables effective prioritisation of requirements.
• Creates and maintains relevant documentation for reporting models and reports.
• Presents forecasts and analyses in the appropriate format for senior stakeholders and works with colleagues to develop real insights.

Business Intelligence (Tableau & Power BI) Methods and Tools 

• Leads the development of organisational capabilities for methods and tools to ensure consistent adoption and adherence to policies and standards.
• Develops organisational policies, standards, and guidelines for methods and tools.
• Provides advice, guidance and expertise to promote adoption of methods and tools and adherence to policies and standards. 
• Manages reviews of the benefits and value of methods and tools, identifying and recommending improvements.

Data Visualisation

• Presents findings and data insights in creative ways to facilitate the understanding of data across a range of technical and non-technical audiences.
• Advises on the appropriate use of data visualisation for different purposes and contexts to satisfy requirements, developing plans showing how the identified user needs will be met.
• Leads exploration of new approaches for data visualisation.
• Ensures the appropriate use of data visualisation tools and techniques, updating institutional guidance and templates to reflect changing best practices.

Programming/Software Development

• Advises on application of standards and methods and ensures compliance. 
• Takes technical responsibility for all stages and/or iterations in a development project, either reporting (e.g. Tableau; Power BI; Scival) or system (e.g. Cognos Planning Analytics; Simitive).
• Adapts or develops new methods and drives adoption of, and adherence to, policies and standards. 
• Provides advice, guidance and assistance to less experienced colleagues as required.

Relationship and Stakeholder Management

• Implements stakeholder engagement including handling of problems and issues to resolution (taking ownership) and producing corrective actions and lessons learned where applicable. 
• Helps develop and enhance stakeholder relationships working through Communities of Practice as appropriate.
• Identifies risks to delivery, assessing impact and probability, developing mitigation strategies, communicating and escalating as required.
• Promotes equality and values diversity acting as a role model and fostering an inclusive working culture.

Reporting Release and Deployment

• Participates in reviews of own work and leads peer reviews of colleagues' work.
• Develops and executes test plans and test cases in coordination with testers, identifying improvements in requirements or design processes to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of testing. 
• Ensures release processes and procedures are maintained.

Organisational Capability, Knowledge Management and Training

• Supports Communities of Practice.
• Facilitates sharing, collaboration and communication of knowledge, sharing ideas and examples of existing practices.
• Prepares and delivers learning and training activities for a variety of audiences.
• Provides detailed instruction as necessary and responds to detailed questions, adapting materials to meet the needs of stakeholders.

Required Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications, Experience

Essential

• Educated to degree level or equivalent qualification plus substantial work experience in a relevant technical/scientific and/or management/supervisory role in a specialist area. A higher degree may also be held. Where no equivalent qualification is held a proven track record of extensive and substantial work experience in a series of progressively more demanding and relevant roles will be required.
• In depth up to date specialist understanding and experience in a relevant scientific, technical or IT specialism demonstrating evidence of continued progressional development and experience of learning new systems.
• Experience of student number planning and forecasting.
• Microsoft Power BI and / or Tableau certified or extensive report writing experience using business intelligence / visualisation tools, with relevant hands-on experience.
• Experience in extracting and transforming datasets for reporting and/or analysis using tools such as SQL, R, Alteryx, Snowflake, dbt etc.
• Experience of data architecture and modelling (e.g. facts and dimensions, materialised views etc).
• Experience of supporting junior developers.
• Proven experience in developing and implementing best practices and development standards.
• Proven experience of undertaking thorough and detailed analysis and using those findings to develop recommendations, presenting outcomes in a clear and concise manner.
• Proven experience of ensuring data quality and accuracy.
• Knowledge of data protection considerations.
• Proven experience of maintaining auditable technical documentation and procedures relating to software usage.
• A high level of numeracy coupled with a proven ability to accurately analyse and interpret complex datasets from multiple electronic sources.
• Ability to see the big picture technically and communicate insights in business terms to everyone in the organisation.
• A customer-orientated approach to service provision.
• Understanding of user experience in reporting.
• Analytical and systematic approach to problem-solving.
• Excellent communication skills for translating data insights into concise executive summaries and presentations.
• Ability to work calmly and systematically in a busy environment and to meet agreed deadlines.
• Good team player, with an ability to contribute outside their principal area of work in a constructive and helpful manner.
• Awareness of departmental and institutional relationships and an ability to work across teams and activities.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area. 
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied. 
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.

Desirable

• A good awareness of the issues facing UK higher education and how they affect university support services.
• Experience of Cognos Planning Analytics.
• Experience of Simitive WAMS. 
• Proven experience of working in agile teams using methodologies such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Experience of creating data-rich dashboards, writing DAX expressions, Power Query and implementing row-level security in Power BI.

 

Informal enquiries to Katy Holmes, email: k.m.holmes@bham.ac.uk 

View our staff values and behaviours here 

 

We believe there is no such thing as a 'typical' member of University of Birmingham staff and that diversity in its many forms is a strength that underpins the exchange of ideas, innovation and debate at the heart of University life. We are committed to proactively addressing the barriers experienced by some groups in our community and are proud to hold Athena SWAN, Race Equality Charter and Disability Confident accreditations. We have an Equality Diversity and Inclusion Centre that focuses on continuously improving the University as a fair and inclusive place to work where everyone has the opportunity to succeed. We are also committed to sustainability, which is a key part of our strategy. You can find out more about our work to create a fairer university for everyone on our website.