Senior/Lead Business Analyst

Job Title: Senior Business Analyst

Department: Business Change & Transformation

Location: Sheffield

Working Pattern: Hybrid, includes 3 days each week in the office

Contract Type: Full time, permanent

Salary: Up to £70,000 per annum

Role Overview

As a Senior Business Analyst, you will serve as the critical link between our strategic vision and project delivery. Your purpose is to help translate our change agenda into something meaningful – helping us define business needs & understanding expected outcomes into requirements that meet both user and business expectations.

You will own our Business Analysis playbook, defining our processes & methodology that helps underpin our ambition to deliver value faster through our delivery lifecycle. You will lead a team of up to 6 Analysts of varying experience and be accountable for what they do and more critically how they do it.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Analysis

• Lead end‑to‑end business analysis activities across complex, high‑impact projects within the transformation and delivery portfolio.
• Act as the principal analytical authority within the business, setting standards, frameworks, and best practice for all BA activity.
• Partner with senior stakeholders to translate strategic objectives into actionable requirements, shaping the product and delivery roadmap.

Requirements, Design & Solution Definition

• Own the requirements lifecycle—elicitation, documentation, validation, and change control—ensuring clarity, quality, and alignment with business goals.
• Facilitate workshops, interviews, and data analysis to understand customer, user, and operational needs across diverse Education and SaaS stakeholder groups.
• Produce high‑quality artefacts (process maps, user stories, acceptance criteria, service blueprints, data models) that guide design and engineering teams.
• Challenge assumptions and propose well‑reasoned solutions that balance customer value, operational efficiency, and technical feasibility.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Serve as the analytical conduit between Product, Technology, Commercial, Customer Success, and Operations teams to ensure cohesive delivery.
• Provide analytical leadership during sprint planning, backlog refinement, UAT planning, and release readiness.

Data‑Driven Insight & Continuous Improvement

• Use data and insight to validate hypotheses, prioritise features, and measure the success of delivered solutions.

Governance, Risk & Quality

• Lead impact assessments, risk identification, and dependency mapping for complex cross‑functional initiatives.
• Ensure all analytical outputs meet governance, compliance, and audit standards relevant to an EdTech SaaS environment (e.g., safeguarding, data protection).
• Act as quality gatekeeper of requirements and BA deliverables across the portfolio.

Coaching & Practice Development

• Manage other Business Analysts and uplift analytical capability across the delivery function.
• Drive the evolution of the BA practice — tools, templates, methodologies, and ways of working.
• Support recruitment, onboarding, and development of junior and mid‑level BAs.

What will you need to succeed?

Experience

• Extensive experience operating as a Senior or Lead Business Analyst within complex, multi‑product SaaS or technology‑enabled organisations.
• A proven track record of delivering large‑scale change and transformation initiatives end‑to‑end, ideally within environments that blend product development, agile delivery, and operational improvement.

Knowledge

• Deep knowledge of business analysis methodologies, requirements engineering, process design, and end‑to‑end delivery frameworks.
• Strong understanding of agile practices, product‑led development, and modern SaaS operating models is essential.
• Familiarity with data‑driven decision‑making, customer journey design, and service blueprinting will be important.

Skills

• Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to break down complexity and communicate insights clearly to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Adept at facilitating workshops, eliciting requirements, modelling processes, and producing high‑quality artefacts that guide design and delivery.
• Strong interpersonal, negotiation, and influencing skills are vital, alongside the ability to lead cross‑functional collaboration and mentor less‑experienced analysts.
• A bias for clarity, critical thinking, and delivery excellence is key.

Qualifications

• Qualifications such as BCS, IIBA (CBAP/CCBA), Lean Six Sigma, or agile certifications (e.g., Scrum, Product Owner), though equivalent practical experience will be valued equally.
• Formal education to degree level in a related field—such as Business, Technology, or Data disciplines—would be beneficial but is not essential – what matters most is behaviours, experience & capability.

What do you get in return?

• 25 days annual leave rising to 30
• 5% pension after probation
• State of the art offices
• Access to a range of benefits via My Benefits World
• Free eye care cover
• Life Assurance
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• EAP (Employee assistance programme)
• Quarterly Tes Socials
• Access to an extensive Learning and Development menu

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