BI Developer

BI Developer
HYBRID (1 - 2 days/month in the London office)

Times Higher Education is the data provider underpinning university excellence in every continent across the world. As the company behind the world’s most influential university ranking, and with almost five decades of experience as a source of analysis and insight on higher education, we have unparalleled expertise on the trends underpinning university performance globally. Our data and benchmarking tools are used by many of the world’s most prestigious universities to help them achieve their strategic goals and our events series act as the home of higher education thought leadership around the world.

The Role

This is an exciting opportunity to join a dynamic, collaborative Business Intelligence team supporting the development of our BI analytics and reporting capabilities across the organization. You will work across commercial, financial and web data, tackling varied reporting, data and analytical challenges, and helping drive the business to make better use of its data.

Reporting to and working closely with the Principal BI Developer, you will play a key role in developing high-quality, trusted reporting and data solutions using our modern BI stack of Fivetran, dbt, GitHub, Snowflake and Tableau. This includes working with data from key business systems such as Salesforce and NetSuite, as well as large-scale web and digital data.

We are looking for strong Tableau and SQL skills from the outset. You do not need to have experience with every part of our BI stack, and you will be supported in developing your technical and business knowledge. However, you will be expected to take ownership of assigned work and become increasingly independent in managing and delivering it.

The role provides the opportunity to work with a varied range of data and business problems, from established commercial reporting and KPI development to web analytics, data quality, automation and one-off projects designed to improve business processes and reduce manual effort. You will create insightful dashboards and reports for a broad audience, from senior management to operational teams, and work directly with stakeholders to understand their requirements and the business questions they are trying to answer. The team is at an early stage in adopting AI to support its work, giving you the opportunity to learn, experiment and contribute to how AI is used across BI and analytics.

As a member of a dynamic team, you will be comfortable taking responsibility for your own work, asking questions where requirements are unclear and communicating progress, risks and blockers promptly.

You will bring excellent communication skills to engage with all levels of the business, contributing to a culture of continuous improvement and learning within the team. This dynamic role offers the chance to make a meaningful impact through your technical contributions and collaboration with others.

Key Tasks and responsibilities

Key role responsibilities

Responsibilities will include (but are not limited to):

• Work with the Principal BI Developer to develop and refine reporting, data models and key KPI metrics across the business.

• Work directly with stakeholders to understand business processes, reporting requirements and the purpose behind requested analysis, translating these into appropriate data and reporting solutions.

• Develop and maintain commercial, financial and web reporting, ensuring outputs are accurate, trusted and useful for decision-making.

• Create and maintain high-quality, interactive Tableau dashboards and reports tailored to audiences ranging from senior management to operational teams.

• Use SQL to query, transform, investigate and validate data, working with datasets from a range of business and digital sources.

• Take ownership of assigned development work, proactively managing priorities, deadlines and dependencies and escalating risks or blockers promptly where these could affect delivery.

• Investigate data and reporting issues methodically, identifying root causes and developing appropriate solutions.

• Be able to explain technical problems, investigations and proposed solutions clearly to both technical and non-technical colleagues.

• Take responsibility for the quality of work delivered, including validating source data, testing transformation and reporting logic, reconciling outputs against expected results and investigating unexpected outcomes before release.

• Gather feedback from users and use this to improve dashboards, reports and other data solutions.

• Use GitHub for version control and documentation, ensuring reporting logic and key business rules are clearly documented and maintainable by other members of the team.

• Develop solutions that are clear, proportionate and maintainable, considering performance, reusability and ease of ongoing support.

• Share Tableau knowledge and best practice with users across the business and provide guidance where appropriate.

• Contribute to continuous improvement within the BI team, identifying opportunities to improve reporting, data quality, processes and ways of working.

Education and experience requirements

Essential Skills and Experience

• Strong working knowledge of Tableau, with hands-on experience developing and maintaining professional dashboards and reports.

• Experience working with Tableau data sources, relationships and joins, calculated fields, parameters, filters and dashboard actions.

• Ability to troubleshoot common Tableau data and dashboard performance issues.

• Strong working knowledge of SQL, with experience writing and troubleshooting queries using joins, aggregations and CTEs.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to investigate data issues logically and identify appropriate solutions.

• Experience working with real-world data and using it to develop dashboards, reports or analytical outputs.

• Understanding of data quality and quality assurance processes.

• Experience taking a reporting or analytical requirement from initial brief through development, testing and delivery.

• Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical colleagues.

• Ability to manage assigned work, communicate progress and raise blockers or risks appropriately

Desirable Skills and Experience

Experience in any of the following would be advantageous but is not essential:

• Tableau Cloud or Tableau Server.

• Snowflake or another cloud data warehouse.

• dbt or another SQL-based data transformation framework.Git or GitHub for version control.

• Fivetran or another data integration/ELT platform.

• Salesforce, NetSuite or similar business systems.

• Financial or commercial reporting.

• Web or digital analytics data.

• Working with high-volume event-level data.

• Higher education or a related sector.

Key attributes we are looking for:

• Ownership & Accountability: Takes responsibility for assigned work through to completion, manages priorities effectively and communicates early where risks, dependencies or blockers could affect delivery.

• Analytical & Data-Driven: Enjoys working with data and approaches problems logically, investigating underlying causes rather than simply treating symptoms.

• Business Curiosity: Seeks to understand the business context and purpose behind a requirement rather than treating development work as an isolated technical task.

• Proactive & Detail-Oriented: Has strong attention to detail and takes responsibility for testing and validating work before considering it complete.

• Effective Communication: Communicates progress, questions, risks and technical concepts clearly and appropriately. Is comfortable asking questions and seeking clarification when something is unclear.

• Problem Solving: Can investigate unfamiliar problems methodically, explain their reasoning and identify proportionate solutions.

• Collaboration & Development: Is open to feedback, willing to share knowledge and comfortable working both independently and collaboratively within a small team.

• Adaptability: Is comfortable working across varied data and business problems and can bring structure to ambiguous requirements while adapting to changing priorities.

You do You
You do You. With colleagues located around the world, we know that our individuality and diversity of experiences are our greatest strengths. That’s why we want THE to be a place where you are welcome to be who you want to be at work; where you can share whatever part of your life or self-identity you want, without obligation or facing discrimination; and where all abilities and perspectives are recognised and accommodated.