Analytics and Business Intelligence Manager

Job Title : Analytics and Business Intelligence Manager
Department : Strategy & Operations
Reports to : Head of Data & Insight
Direct report(s) : None
Salary Banding : c. £58,000 per annum 
Job Level : Guide
Location : HQ - This role is contractually based at Allianz Stadium, offering some flexibility to work from home
Travel Requirements : Occasional
Employment Type : Permanent  
Working Hours : This is a full-time role, covering 35hrs per week

Application Information:

• Please submit an anonymised CV and cover letter (i.e. exclude personal details).
• The closing date for applications is 5pm on Thursday 17 October.
• The RFU reserves the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications.
• Applications may be considered whilst this vacancy is advertised.

The Role:

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for grassroots and elite rugby in England. Its purpose is to enrich lives and develop the sport for future generations. After undergoing a period of transformation and change the Strategy and Operations department has recently developed a new ‘Business & Corporate Support’ function. The ambition of this function is to efficiently operate business processes and manage corporate governance for the organisation.

We are looking for an Analytics and Business Intelligence Manager to join our Strategy and Operations team to manage key data and insights projects.

The RFU aims to put data-driven decisions at its centre. By developing deeper understanding of players, volunteers and fans, the RFU hopes to create sustained and transformational change for Rugby Union in England.

The role holder will provide clear and actionable sector insight which supports the RFU and gives strong evidence for strategic change. With proven, relevant analytical skills and experience, this role will enable the business to make informed decisions about key strategic priorities and support the development of effective ROI tracking.

The role holder will manage data and insights projects, ensuring that all aspects are delivered to the highest standards. This role will need to provide high levels of customer service to an array of stakeholders across the RFU and externally (including but not limited to volunteers, commercial and other partners and agencies). They will have excellent organisational, numerical/statistical and data skills.

Some key responsibilities include:

Analytical & Problem-Solving Skills:

• Data Interpretation: Ability to interpret complex datasets and identify trends, patterns, and correlations.
• Business Acumen: Understanding of the business context to translate data findings into actionable business strategies.
• Critical Thinking: Strong analytical thinking to identify problems, root causes, and potential solutions using data.
• Decision-Making: Ability to make data-driven decisions that align with business goals.

Lead and manage projects, with support from other Data, Insights and Analytics personnel where required. Specifically:

• Stakeholder Management: Ability to collaborate with and manage expectations of various stakeholders, including executives, technical teams, and non-technical staff.
• Communication: Excellent communication skills to convey complex technical information to non-technical audiences in a clear and concise manner.
• Team Leadership: Experience in leading and mentoring data teams, managing projects, and ensuring collaboration across departments.
• Presentation Skills: Ability to present data insights and recommendations to senior management and other stakeholders.

Data Visualisation:

• Ability to convert complicated data into simple and accessible dashboards and reports.
• Ability to assess existing dashboards and data visualization and update refine where required

Data Governance & Compliance:

• Data Quality Management: Ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of data across systems.
• Data Privacy & Compliance: Understanding of data privacy laws (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations.
• Data Governance: Experience in establishing data governance frameworks and policies to manage data assets effectively.

Continuous Learning & Adaptability:

• Industry Trends: Staying updated with the latest trends in data analytics, database technologies, and industry best practices.
• Adaptability: Ability to quickly adapt to new tools, technologies, and methodologies as they emerge in the data space

Shape and drive the development of the RFU’s data and insights function:

• Owning the long term workplan for data projects, managing expectations of stakeholders and helping to organise resource.
• Managing data suppliers to extract the maximum value from their platform, data or consultancy support.
• Collaborating closely with other RFU departments to ensure that data is sourced, stored & used according to best practice.

Be a proactive and valued member of the wider Strategy and Operations team, specifically:

• Examining RFU data for opportunities and risks to business performance.
• Building awareness of wider business needs – challenging existing methods or suggesting new ways to tackle issues. 
• Always providing insight and not just information – adding something to correspondence, providing context around work never just the numbers, drawing on multiple sources (research, insights and analytics).
• Enabling the business to prioritise between different opportunities and challenges by using consistent reporting frameworks and measures, providing evidence of where interventions are working/not working.

Other:

• Committed to embodying the ethos our culture by using our three core values – Put The Team First, Shape The Future, Respect Each Other – to guide your day-to-day decisions, actions and interactions.
• Committed to actively contributing and building an inclusive culture in your role and day to day behaviours.

Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

The skills and attributes outlined in this description are not exhaustive and we welcome candidates who can bring different relevant experiences to the role.

Essential:

• SQL Proficiency: Ability to write complex queries, optimise performance, and work with various relational databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle).
• Data visualization competence, with a preference for Tableau.
• Statistical Analysis: Understanding of statistical methods and their application to business problems.
• Practical experience of managing, processing, analysing, and reporting on both business and consumer data.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data, identify trends and communicate this to colleagues at all levels.
• Practical experience of translating data into relevant information and meaningful insight and communicating the findings to a "non-analytical" audience.
• Experience of developing close working relationships across multi-function teams, influencing, and managing upwards to drive results.
• Confidence and experience in working with various stakeholders; building relationships across organisations with diverse priorities.
• An experienced project manager, who can run projects independently from start to finish.
• Brilliant collaborator, able to get the most out of diverse internal & external stakeholders to deliver excellent work.
• Outstanding communicator, who excels in presentations as well as in the day to day.
• Highly motivated & productive, able to follow self-paced learning to pick up new skills and information to benefit that individual and the whole team.
• Analytical thinker, who can assess large datasets logically and with an eye for interesting trends and patterns.
• Impactful data visualizer, who brings stories to life in reports and dashboards for audiences with less experience of data & insights.
• Fantastic at anticipating opportunities & challenges and suggesting a path through them.
• Committed to embodying the ethos our culture by using our three core values – Put The Team First, Shape The Future, Respect Each Other – to guide your day-to-day decisions, actions and interactions.
• Committed to actively contributing and building an inclusive culture in your role and day to day behaviours.

Desirable: 

• Data Integration: ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) Processes: Ability to design, build, and maintain ETL pipelines for data integration from multiple sources.
• Data Migration: Skills in migrating data between systems or from on-premises to cloud-based platforms.
• Machine Learning: Basic knowledge of machine learning algorithms and frameworks (e.g., Scikit-learn, TensorFlow).
• Educated to degree standard in a related field would be preferred.
• IT literate and skilled in the use of Microsoft Office Applications with demonstratable experience of managing other systems/databases.
• Interest in learning to work with big databases within a data intensive organisation or environment.
• Some understanding of the local sporting landscape and sport development.
• Experience with research platforms such as Alchemer or Recollective.

Additional Information:

• We want you to have every opportunity to demonstrate your skills, ability and potential. If there is anything we could do to support you through your application or to provide the best environment for your interviews, including assistance or adjustment, please reach out to recruitment@rfu.com. 
• During your application, we will ask questions about your identity. This information is considered highly confidential and will not be seen by hiring managers. You can find out more about why we ask these questions here.
• If you'd like to download the full job description, please click here.

About England Rugby
England Rugby or Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby in England. We deliver three core activities, and our purpose is to enrich lives, introduce more people to rugby union and develop the sport for future generations.

Our core activities are:

Rugby – supporting rugby from grassroots to performance level

Commercial – building partnerships and hosting matches and events

Running the business - ensuring our organization and people can thrive

Our Culture

At England Rugby, one of our core objectives is to drive rugby union to better reflect the diversity of society. We are aware that rugby, and sports in general, has not always been as welcoming an environment for everyone as we would like, and we are working hard to make rugby a more inclusive space for all identities.

We believe hiring people from underrepresented groups into positions at all levels is vital to creating spaces and initiatives that better support those identities. We would love to see applications from disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, people from ethnically diverse communities, people of faith, people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and women and non-binary people.

We know that representation is more than just getting people through the door, it’s about keeping people by responding to structural barriers relating to identities and valuing the insights that different lived experiences bring. We have network groups that provide peer-to-peer support and drive forward change internally. We support colleagues to develop, and each colleague has access to a personal coaching platform that can provide same-day one-to-one coaching. We are pushing ourselves to create a more inclusive culture every day through role modelling our BACK behaviours which stand for Brave, Accountable, Collaborative and Keep improving.

We know that flexible working is important to our colleagues, so our guiding principles are designed to support everyone to work in the way that suits them, their teams, and the organization in the best way.

We want you to have every opportunity to demonstrate your skills, ability and potential. If there is anything we could do to support you through your application or to provide the best environment for your interviews, including assistance or adjustment, please reach out to recruitment@rfu.com.

What we can offer you

We are proud of the range of benefits we can provide:

• A variety of corporate discounts.
• Priority access to purchase match tickets
• 25% discount in Rugby Store and EnglandRugby.com
• 25 days of annual leave and your birthday day off
• Free access to the stadium gym
• Life assurance of 4x your basic salary, income protection scheme and Employee Assistance Programme that offers anonymous and confidential, emotional and practical support 24/7
• After 3 months, you will be enrolled in our Aviva pension scheme and we will match and double your contribution up to 10%
• Ride-to-work scheme, eyecare vouchers and season ticket loans

About Our Team At England Rugby, we want to hear our employees’ thoughts, ideas and feedback on our strategies, new initiatives and our work environment. That’s why we have quarterly meetings called ‘the Voice’ where various topics are discussed, in addition to regular surveys, including our annual D&I survey. We are always striving to create the best environment for our colleagues, and we are proud to present some of our most recent feedback from Feb 2022:

• 85% feel motivated to perform their role to the best of their ability
• 83% feel supported by their Manager
• 90% agree or strongly agree that their Manager empowers and trusts them to deliver while working from home
• 83% feel informed and connected with the organisation

If you would like to find out more about our diversity and inclusion work or the culture at England Rugby, please visit our website here: https://www.englandrugby.com/about-rfu/rfu-policies/diversity-and-inclusion/our-approach