Principal Data Analyst

Job summary

Digital & Data Directorate

The UKHSA Digital & Data Directorate provides strategic leadership and oversight for developing and managing a common and bespoke suite of performant, modern, secure, data and analytical tools, services, platforms and applications, ensuring access to high quality data and analytics services, internally and externally.

Data Product Development

Based within the Digital & Data Directorate, the Data Product Development Division are responsible for the development and delivery of new and existing data products such as dashboards and platforms, ensuring that data are made available to improve health security outcomes. Our flagship product is the UKHSA data dashboard, which builds on the hugely influential COVID-19 dashboard, and presents data on COVID-19, as well as other respiratory viruses such as influenza, and various themes representing the remit of UKHSA.

As part of the Data Product Development division, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the delivery of our data products, providing expertise to ensure data products are created with quality in mind and deployed successfully and smoothly into production.

Job description

As a Principal Data Analyst, you will lead on the ‘business as usual ‘production of the UKHSA data dashboard and other key data products for the Agency, including overseeing the answering of Parliamentary Questions (PQ’s), Freedom of Infromation (FOI's) and Public Inquiry queries for these services.

You will:

• oversee refreshes of data products, their continuous improvement and also driving and accepting new developments into live processing.
• work collaboratively with product, user centred design, data development and technical development colleagues.
• lead the work within our Power Bi Centre of Excellence including the PowerBi service, training programme and a cross-Agency Dashboard Community of Practice.
• oversee the creation of key internal facing dashboards (using PowerBi) which are driven by the needs of internal UKHSA colleagues and external stakeholders.
• Your role will include data analysis to drive high product performance, quality assurance of dashboard products, as well as supporting the provision of training and translational support so that stakeholders can understand and use data for evidence-based decision making.

You will work matrix style with colleagues across the country to develop data products. You may also be required to manage staff at SEO or HEO level.

This role involves the collation, analysis, interpretation and presentation of public health information. You will be required to have good working knowledge of the practical application of analytical methods, be highly numerate and have good communication skills.

Specific Responsibilities

• Leading, planning, managing and delivering on a range of projects requiring potentially complex analytic input, including negotiating and agreeing the most appropriate data output, initiating and planning workloads and setting delivery timescales.
• Using tools such as SQL, R, Python to build data pipelines.
• Development of dashboards for data visualisation using tools such as Power BI
• Lead the “business as usual” production of data products, such as the UKHSA data dashboard, including running data pipelines and quality assuring outputs
• Lead on the development and promotion of quality assurance procedures. Check for data anomalies prior to and during analyses and perform corrective actions as required, including liaising with internal and external data providers.
• Exercise judgement in interpreting statistics appropriately, especially where the data indicates a negative or contentious situation.
• Communicate analytical/statistical matters to non-analytical/statistical professionals.
• Attending local and national meetings with key stakeholders including health intelligence analysts, health improvement and protection colleagues, and partner organisations for UKHSA.
• Ensuring personal compliance, and promoting team compliance, with corporate policies in relation to security, confidentiality and release of information.
• An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships.

Person specification

Essential criteria - you will be assessed on the below 12 essential criteria.

• Educated to first- or upper-second-class honours degree level in a numerate discipline such as statistics, mathematics, sciences, social sciences, economics, geography or you have equivalent relevant experience in these same fields.
• Must have a willingness/ ability to join the government analytical professions forum, once in post
• Strong leadership experience within an analytical domain
• Substantial experience of coding (e.g. SQL, R, Python) and familiarity with data science elements e.g. working with version control / code sharing platforms
• Experience of data visualisation, specifically Power BI
• Experience of quality assuring data and analytical products, including quality assuring outputs and introducing and improving quality assurance procedures
• Experience in the use of statistical methods for analysing data sets
• Experience of written and oral communication and interpretation of complex analysis to a varied group of stakeholders
• Demonstrated capabilities to manage own workload and make informed decisions in the absence of required information, working to tight and often changing timescales
• Experience of building strong relationships and encouraging collaborative working both within and outside of own team
• Knowledge of data security and confidentiality issues
• Line management experience and/or knowledge of the principles of good line management

Careers website

Please visit our careers site for more information https://gov.uk/ukhsa/careers

Location

Hybrid any Core HQ

This role is being offered as hybrid working based at any of our Core HQ’s. We offer great flexible working opportunities at UKHSA and operate using a hybrid working model where business needs allow. This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce.

As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata, (averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's core HQ’s (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London)

Our core HQ offices are modern and newly refurbished with excellent city centre transport link and benefit from benefit from co-location with other government departments such as the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC).

Security Clearance Level Requirement

Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Basic Personnel Security Standard.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Your application may be rejected and/or you may be subject to disciplinary action if evidence of plagiarism is detected. Examples of plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence (AI), as your own.

For further information on selection process, interview, Civil Service Nationality Rules and benefits of working for UKHSA, please click to apply where you will be redirected to the role on civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk