Lead Analyst

Sainsburys Tech - Lead Analyst - Strong SQL and Python knowledge is essential. 

Why join us

Joining us at Sainsbury's means being part of a dynamic and innovative multi-channel, multi-brand business that serves millions of customers every day. With the largest loyalty scheme in the UK and cutting-edge digital platforms, we handle over 1.2 billion transactions annually, offering unparalleled volume, depth, and complexity of data. You'll have the exciting opportunity to tap into this vast data set, leveraging advanced technology and analytics to build scalable and high-performance products that deliver an amazing shopping experience to millions of people across the UK. In an inclusive and agile environment, you'll have the freedom to foster curiosity, experiment, and tackle real-world challenges, helping us unlock the true value of our data and drive impactful analysis that supports our strategic goals. Join us and be part of a team that values ownership, continuous improvement, and a human touch in everything we do.

What you'll do

As a Lead Analyst within our multi-channel, multi-brand business, you will play a vital role in unlocking the value of our extensive data assets and delivering analytical insights that directly support our strategic objectives. Working within a high-calibre team, you will focus primarily on providing analytical value for our retail divisions, gaining a deep understanding of our operations across brands such as Sainsbury's, Argos, Tu, and Habitat. Your role will involve developing and maintaining relationships with stakeholders, championing a collaborative approach to requirements gathering, and delivering compelling analysis that guides strategic decision-making. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for data storytelling, you will translate complex concepts into digestible narratives that inspire action. Your inquisitive mindset and problem-solving abilities, combined with your proficiency in tools such as SQL, Python, and/or R, will enable you to derive actionable insights and drive meaningful business change. Overall, you will contribute to our inclusive, fast-paced environment by continuously seeking opportunities for improvement, actively participating in the wider analytics community, and being proactive in your career development and progression.

In Applied Data & Analytics (ADA), you will stretch the imagination of what the power of data and insights can bring to how we do things. You will help to unlock the value of Sainsbury’s enormous multi-brand, multi-channel data asset in a centralised ‘mini consultancy’ style analytics team that supports wide parts of the business make data driven decisions. You will use your intense curiosity to find creative ways to land impactful analysis that directly supports the Sainsbury’s strategy of ‘First Choice for Food’, ‘Loyalty Everyone Loves’, ‘More Argos, More Often’ and ‘Save & Invest to Win’. 

This role sits within the Commercial Analytics team. Working across Sainsbury’s and Argos, our remit is to help the business to better understand our commercial performance, liaising closely across Food Commercial and Strategy teams amongst others. We are passionate about leveraging data and analytics in order to identify opportunities and provide solutions to optimise our commercial performance.

Who you are

You are a highly skilled and inquisitive Analyst who is passionate about unlocking the power of data and insights. With a strong analytical background and a drive to understand the operations of our retail divisions, you have a proven track record in delivering actionable insights and driving business change through analytics. Your ability to think critically, solve problems logically, and communicate complex concepts with clarity enables you to build and tell compelling data stories that inspire action. With a collaborative approach, a curiosity for continuous improvement, and a proactive mindset for career development, you thrive in a fast-paced, high-quality environment where your contributions make a significant impact on the realisation of our company strategy.

As a Lead Analyst you will:

• Sit within the Commercial Analytics team, liaising closely with members of the Food Commercial and Transformation teams
• Be an Analytics Lead for a team of high calibre Analysts, supported by an Analytics Manager in utilising our data assets to establish the realisation of the business strategy. 
• Manage a direct report and coach junior analysts in the team.
• Assist in planning, prioritising, and delegating workload to help the business achieve their strategic aims.  
• Apply your analytical knowledge to business problems recommending and implementing the analytical approach.
• Lead projects, develop & maintain relationships with your stakeholders, championing a collaborative approach to requirements gathering and the formation of compelling analysis.
• Move at pace, whilst still delivering high quality, accurate, professional outputs that land the real truths that sit within the data. You will proactively ensure you are always in touch with the ‘Why’ behind every project – understanding the purpose of your analysis, and which decisions the business is looking to inform. 
• Deliver insights and recommendations through high quality data storytelling. We love data and deriving value from it. The key to the value is in being able to build and tell compelling stories based on this data.
• Embrace our values of Owning It, Making it Better and Being Human.

What you need to know and show

• A highly numerate background. You may have a degree in mathematics, statistics or another analytical subject, or analytical work experience. 
• SQL and Python knowledge is essential. Experience using R is helpful but not vital.
• Line management or experience within mentoring roles is preferable.
• A proven history of delivering actionable insights and demonstrable business change through the application of analytics.
• Brilliant communication skills, having the ability to explain complex information in simple terms
• An inquisitive mind, with the curiosity to be constantly on the lookout for opportunities and the ability to logically solve problems. 
• High attention to detail
• The ability to partner brilliantly with the business to understand their problems and deliver value, applying commercial acumen and communicating/connecting in a compelling way.
• Keen to learn and develop. Pro-active about driving your career development and progression.
• A high level of team contribution – looking for opportunities to provide input and support across the wider analytics community.

#LI-KF1

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.

We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them:
 
 Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 10% of salary, depending on how we perform.  
 
 Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an employee assistance programme.
 
 Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave. 
 
 Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).