Financial Data Analyst FTC 6M

Closing date: 30 September 2026

Salary range - £38,162 to £50,287

As the industry transitions to Great British Railways (GBR), bringing track and train together under a single guiding mind and moving towards public ownership, we are looking for an experienced Financial Data Analyst to join Rail Delivery Group (RDG) and play a pivotal role in preparing our organisation for this transition. Working across people, processes, culture and organisational design, you'll help ensure RDG is ready for Day One of GBR and the phased transition leading up to this.

If you thrive in complex environments, enjoy influencing senior stakeholders and want to be at the heart of one of the UK's most important transformation programmes, we'd love to hear from you.

What is the purpose of this job?

Finance efficiency, transparency and automation. To build the reporting and data infrastructure that underpins finance, people and project decision-making across RDG. The role will design and own data pipelines from multiple business systems, creating a reliable reporting layer and a suite of Power BI dashboards used across the organisation. The role will also provide ad hoc analytical and automation support to the Commercial Finance team and wider Finance function.

This is a hands-on build-from-the-ground-up role, suited to someone who enjoys both finance, data modelling, ETL and source integration, as well as dashboard design and stakeholder-facing insight.

What can I expect to do in this job?

Data infrastructure

• Identify, connect and consolidate data from disparate business systems, including NetSuite, Cascade, Smartsheet and other operational sources.
• Design and set up robust ETL and data pipelines to ensure clean, reliable and timely data flows into a central reporting layer with low ongoing maintenance.
• Build a scalable data model, such as a star schema, to support fast, flexible reporting rather than one-off extracts.
• Establish data governance practices, including naming conventions, refresh schedules, version control and documentation, so the reporting suite remains maintainable as it grows.
• After dashboard go-live, troubleshoot data quality issues at source with Finance Business Partner teams and put checks in place to catch issues early.

Power BI reporting and dashboards

• Design, build and maintain Power BI dashboards across finance, people and projects.
• For finance reporting, support insight across P&L, budget versus actuals, cash flow and cost centre performance.
• For people reporting, support headcount, attrition, hiring pipeline, pay and compa-ratio tracking.
• For project reporting, support delivery status, resourcing, budget burn and milestone tracking.
• Translate business questions into clear, intuitive visualisations that non-technical stakeholders can self-serve from.
• Own the end-to-end DAX and data modelling layer, balancing performance with flexibility.
• Roll out dashboards with appropriate access controls, including row-level security where needed, and train users on how to use them.

Ad hoc finance analysis / automation

• Support the Head of Commercial Finance, Head of Settlement & Treasury and wider Finance team with one-off analytical deliverables, including scenario modelling, automation, variance analysis and business case support.
• Respond flexibly to emerging data requests from across the business, prioritising requests against the core infrastructure roadmap.

Who will my key contacts be?

• Finance leadership (Head of Commercial Finance, Head of Settlement & Treasury and Finance Director)
• Wider Finance team, including Finance Business Partner teams.
• Non-technical business users and stakeholders who need self-serve insight from dashboards.
• Owners and users of finance, HR, project management and operational data sources, including NetSuite, Cascade and Smartsheet.
• Data Analytics team

Requirements

Essential experience, skills and knowledge

• Strong hands-on experience building Power BI reports and data models, including Power Query, DAX and data modelling best practice.
• Experience integrating and structuring data from multiple, disparate source systems.
• Solid SQL skills for data extraction, transformation and querying.
• Comfortable working with finance, HR and project data simultaneously, with the ability to understand the underlying business logic of each area.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, including the ability to work with non-technical business users to scope requirements and explain outputs.
• High attention to detail and a strong instinct for data quality and governance.

Desirable experience

• Experience with ETL or data pipeline tools, such as Power Automate, Azure Data Factory or Dataflows.
• Experience working within or alongside a finance function, such as FP&A or management accounts.
• Familiarity with Azure or cloud data platforms.
• Prior experience setting up a reporting function from scratch, rather than maintaining an existing one.

What success looks like

• A single source of truth for finance, people and project data, with reliable automated refreshes.
• A suite of dashboards that are actively used and trusted across the business, reducing manual reporting requests.
• Fast turnaround on ad hoc analytical requests, without compromising the integrity of the core reporting build.

Benefits

Why Work for RDG?

We offer a highly competitive package, including:

• 75% discount on rail travel (for work and leisure), plus international rail discounts
• 30 Days annual leave (plus buy/sell options and additional leave for key life events)
• Two Personal Development Days are granted to employees annually
• Interest-free Season Ticket Loan for commuting costs
• Enhanced family leave - 30 weeks full pay for maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and shared parental leave
• Pension scheme - up to 8.64% employer contribution
• Subsidised Private Medical Insurance (Vitality PPP) and Health Cash Plan (Healthshield)
• Access to our flexible benefits portal - a central hub for accessing retail discounts, shopping, dining, travel, and entertainment perks
• Flexible working arrangements available