Data & Analytics Lead

Embed data-driven decision-making across Reform UK

• Work with the Executive Editor, Director of Operations and other senior stakeholders to establish regular performance and insight reviews that lead to impactful decisions.
• Support Website, Video, Social, Communications, Campaigns, Membership, Operations and other teams with practical analysis, helping each function understand its own performance in the wider system.
• Challenge weak assumptions and vanity metrics constructively, distinguishing signal from noise and making clear where the evidence is incomplete or attribution is uncertain.
• Train colleagues to understand the dashboards and core metrics so data literacy increases throughout the organisation rather than becoming dependent on one analyst.

Own governance, compliance and trust

• Be the internal expert on data governance for the analytics function, ensuring work aligns with UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act, ICO guidance and relevant organisational policies.
• Work closely with the DPO and system owners on lawful basis, consent, minimisation, retention, access, pseudonymisation, URL/log hygiene and appropriate use of personal data.
• Maintain clear data lineage, permissions and documentation so key metrics are reproducible and sensitive information is available only to those who genuinely need it.

Performance and Leadership:

• Build alerting and monitoring for material changes, broken journeys, unusual movements or data-quality failures where rapid intervention is valuable.
• Build trusted relationships with senior leaders, digital teams, campaigns, membership, operations, suppliers and technical partners so the data function is seen as an enabler rather than a reporting bottleneck.
• Communicate complex analysis in clear, plain English, surface new ideas and be confident presenting findings to senior decision-makers.
• Manage external analytics, BI, data or technology suppliers where required, ensuring integrations, costs and deliverables are properly controlled.
• Maintain political awareness and discretion when working with sensitive organisational, membership or campaign data and understand that some insights will be operationally or reputationally sensitive.

THE PERSON

We are looking for a senior data and analytics expert who has built practical insight capability before and can turn fragmented information into a trusted system that improves decisions.

Essential experience and capabilities

• A proven track record of establishing or materially improving a data, analytics, BI or insight operation in a complex organisation.
• Strong experience integrating disparate data sources and designing a practical reporting architecture rather than relying on disconnected manual reports.
• Demonstrable ability to build dashboards that colleagues actually use, with clear metrics, trends, context, drill-downs and decision relevance.
• Excellent analytical judgement: able to distinguish signal from noise, explain uncertainty, avoid misleading attribution and turn numbers into actionable insight.
• Strong technical competence with relevant data, analytics and BI tools, including the ability to work effectively with APIs, structured data, automation and modern dashboarding platforms.
• Experience defining KPIs, baselines, targets, cohorts and measurement frameworks across multiple functions or stages of a user/member journey.
• Outstanding communication skills, including the ability to explain complex analysis to non-technical senior stakeholders and influence decisions without hiding behind jargon.
• Expert understanding of UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act, ICO guidance, consent, minimisation, retention, access controls and good data-governance practice.
• Highly organised, self-sufficient and able to manage multiple stakeholders, systems, dependencies and priorities while maintaining clear documentation and data trust.
• Proactive and pragmatic: willing to build a useful first version quickly, automate what matters and improve iteratively rather than waiting for a perfect enterprise architecture.
• Strong interest in British politics and comfort handling sensitive information within a high-profile, mission-led political organisation where discretion and judgement are essential.
• Willingness to work full-time from Reform UK's Westminster HQ and flex around major political, campaign and reporting moments when rapid analysis is required.

Highly desirable

• Experience in political campaigning, media, membership organisations, subscriptions, CRM, advocacy or another environment where behaviour moves across multiple online and offline touchpoints.
• Strong SQL, Python/R, data-modeling or warehouse experience and the ability to work directly with technical teams when deeper implementation is required.
• Experience setting up experimentation, causal measurement, attribution or structured test-and-learn frameworks while communicating methodological limits clearly.
• A track record of changing organisational behaviour through insight - for example reallocating resource, improving reach/conversion/retention, changing messaging or stopping low-value activity.

Why join Reform UK?

This is a rare opportunity to build the intelligence layer of a fast-growing national political organisation rather than inherit a narrow analytics brief. The successful candidate will bring fragmented information together and shape how senior leaders make decisions across Reform UK.