Workforce Analytics Lead

Job overview

University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) is seeking a Workforce Analytics Lead to deliver high‑quality workforce intelligence that supports operational delivery, workforce planning and strategic decision‑making across the Trust.

This senior specialist role will lead on transforming complex workforce, medical and financial data from systems such as ESR, rostering, recruitment, temporary staffing and finance into clear, actionable insight for senior leaders, Divisions and Boards. You will develop integrated dashboards and reports, provide expert interpretation and narrative, and support assurance reporting, service redesign and workforce sustainability.

Working closely with colleagues across People Services, Finance, Digital and operational teams, you will act as the Trust’s subject matter expert for workforce analytics, ensuring high standards of data quality, governance and consistency.

You will be educated to Master’s level or have equivalent experience, with significant experience of workforce analytics in a complex organisation, ideally the NHS. Strong analytical capability, experience of presenting complex data to senior stakeholders, and advanced data visualisation skills are essential.

Main duties of the job

The Workforce Analytics Lead is a senior specialist role across UHN responsible for delivering a high-quality, integrated workforce analytics and intelligence service across the Trust.

The postholder will lead the transformation of complex workforce, staffing and pay and financial data into clear, actionable insight to support operational delivery, workforce planning, operational planning and strategic decision-making, including the interpretation of national, regional and local guidelines. The role plays a critical part in enabling workforce planning and service redesign through advanced analytics, forecasting and triangulation of workforce data across all staff groups.

A key focus of the role is the integration of data from ESR, rostering systems, recruitment platforms, temporary staffing systems, Finance (inc PFR) and medical workforce sources to provide a single, coherent view of workforce supply, demand, performance and cost. The role will also support the development of robust assurance reporting to provide confidence in workforce performance, risks, and delivery against plan.

Working in partnership with colleagues across People Services, Finance, Digital, ESR, Rostering, Temporary Staffing, Recruitment, and Medical Workforce teams, the postholder will ensure workforce and financial data are translated into meaningful intelligence that supports evidence-based decision-making and effective operational planning across the organisation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Workforce Analytics, Insight and Reporting

• Lead the delivery of a comprehensive workforce analytics and reporting service across all staff groups.
• Develop and deliver integrated reporting that triangulates data from ESR, rostering systems, recruitment systems, temporary staffing platforms, medical workforce and financial data sources, including production of PWR, to support operational planning, inform workforce decision-making, and contribute to assurance reporting.
• Produce high-quality dashboards and reports using tools such as Power BI, QlikView/Qlik Sense and ESR reporting tools.
• Translate highly complex, multi-source workforce data and analytical outputs into clear, actionable insights that inform and influence strategic decision-making by Boards, Committees, and operational leaders maintaining credibility and objectivity when presenting sensitive or challenging findings
• Provide interpretation and narrative alongside data, ensuring reports drive understanding, challenge and action.

Workforce Performance and Intelligence

• Develop and monitor workforce KPIs across all staff groups, including but not limited to: Vacancy and recruitment performance, Roster fill rates and workforce deployment, Bank and agency usage and Medical staffing indicators (rota gaps, locum usage, job planning metrics)
• Provide insight into workforce cost pressures, including agency spend, pay leakage and inefficiencies.
• Identify trends, risks and system pressures through integrated workforce analysis.
• Support operational and senior leaders with tailored insight to inform performance improvement.

Workforce Planning Insight and Support

• Enable workforce planning decisions through timely, accurate and triangulated workforce intelligence.
• Provide high-quality workforce intelligence to support the annual workforce planning cycle, including analysis of workforce supply, demand, establishment, vacancies and deployment across all staff groups through rostering activity, recruitment pipelines, temporary staffing usage and medical workforce data
• Deliver forward-looking analysis, forecasting and scenario modelling to support both short-term operational workforce requirements and longer-term strategic workforce planning activity.
• Support Divisions and corporate teams by providing clear interpretation of workforce plans, ensuring decisions are informed by robust, integrated workforce intelligence and evidence-based insight.
• Produce expert analytical outputs to inform workforce planning activity, service redesign and organisational decision-making across the Trust and wider system.

Medical Workforce Analytics

• Provide specialist analysis and reporting on the medical workforce, including establishment, job planning, rota activity, vacancy levels and locum usage.
• Develop integrated insight linking medical staffing systems, ESR, rostering, recruitment and financial data.
• Work collaboratively with Medical Staffing and/or Medical Directors’ Office (or equivalent People Services functions depending on organisational structure) to ensure accurate interpretation and consistent reporting.
• Recognise that operational responsibility for medical staffing processes, job planning and rota management remains with designated medical workforce leadership teams.
• Ensure continuity of reporting and insight regardless of organisational structure.
• Highlight risks, inefficiencies and opportunities to improve sustainability and reduce locum dependency.

Recruitment, Vacancy and Workforce Supply Insight

• Provide detailed analysis of vacancy trends, recruitment performance and workforce pipeline activity.
• Support the Deputy Head of People Planning with high-quality insight into time to hire and workforce gaps.
• Link recruitment performance to workforce deployment and temporary staffing usage.
• Identify opportunities to improve recruitment efficiency and reduce reliance on temporary staffing.

Temporary Staffing, Rostering and Workforce Deployment

• Analyse bank and agency usage, including cost, utilisation and trends.
• Integrate rostering data with substantive workforce, vacancies and recruitment activity to assess workforce efficiency.
• Provide insight into roster fill rates, escalation patterns and workforce gaps.
• Work collaboratively with Rostering and Temporary Staffing teams to ensure aligned reporting and interpretation.
• Identify opportunities to improve workforce deployment and reduce premium staffing costs.

Data Integration, Quality and Governance

• Ensure workforce data from multiple systems is integrated, aligned and consistently defined.
• Work in partnership with ESR and system leads to improve data quality and governance.
• Develop and maintain standardised workforce definitions and reporting frameworks.
• Ensure compliance with statutory, mandatory and internal reporting requirements.
• Promote data accuracy and a single version of the truth across workforce systems.

Strategic Insight and Decision Support

• Provide analytical support for workforce transformation, service redesign and productivity initiatives.
• Contributes to the development of workforce policies, service redesign and transformation initiatives through the provision of expert workforce intelligence, forecasting and analytical insight
• Use benchmarking and comparative data to identify workforce optimisation opportunities.
• Support strategic and divisional planning through evidence-based insight rather than operational ownership.
• Present highly complex analysis in a clear, accessible and influential way for senior stakeholders.

Leadership of Workforce Analytics Function

• Act as the Trust’s subject matter expert for workforce analytics, reporting and insight, providing highly complex information, adapting communication styles to ensure that non-workforce experts understand the information being presented.
• Lead development of innovative analytical approaches, including automation and self-service reporting.
• Build analytical capability within the team, ensuring resilience and continuous improvement.
• Maintain strong collaborative relationships across People Services, Finance, Digital, ESR, Rostering, Recruitment and Medical Workforce teams.
• Act as the central coordination point for workforce intelligence data flows across multiple corporate teams (including finance, temporary staffing, medical office and rostering).
• Coordinate the collection, prioritisation and delivery of mandatory and ad hoc workforce data requests, adapting requirements in response to organisational needs.
• Manage dependencies across contributing teams, agreeing and monitoring timelines to ensure the timely provision of accurate, complete and consistent data.
• Accountable for the delivery of workforce intelligence outputs, ensuring all required data inputs and analytical products are produced, quality assured, and delivered to agreed deadlines.
• Ensure the quality assurance and sign-off of workforce data prior to use in analysis and reporting, checking for accuracy, consistency and completeness.
• Proactively identify and resolve issues affecting data quality or availability, escalating appropriately to relevant team managers where required.
• Establish and maintain contingency arrangements for workforce analytics, including training and supporting designated staff to provide cover and ensure continuity, quality and timely delivery of outputs during periods of absence and critical reporting cycles or time-sensitive demands

Risk, Governance and Projects

• Identify and escalate workforce risks through data analysis and insight.
• Plan and lead workforce analytics and reporting projects, including system enhancements.
• Ensure compliance with data governance, audit requirements and ESR standards.
• Contribute to regional and national workforce analytics initiatives where required.
• Develops and adapts methodologies for the production, analysis and presentation of workforce data to reflect changing service requirements and organisational priorities. Reviews and refines analytical approaches to ensure workforce intelligence remains meaningful, responsive and avoids repetition or loss of relevance over time

Additional Responsibilities

Deputise for the Deputy Head of People Processes as required.

Build and maintain effective working relationships in line with Trust values.

Undertake additional duties commensurate with the banding of the role.