Senior Data Strategy Consultant (Contract- Ouside IR35)

We are looking for a Senior Data Strategy Consultant with 15 plus years of experience for one our clients. This is an advisory, strategy-level engagement focusing on assessment, direction-setting, and roadmap definition

Location: London,UK (Hybrid working (typically 2-3 days per week on-site)

Domain: Financial Services

Employment Type Contract - Outside IR 35

Key Responsibilities

Define a data strategy and roadmap aligned to business priorities and growth objectives

Assess current data capabilities, maturity, and architecture, identifying gaps and opportunities for value creation

Translate business objectives into a prioritised data and analytics roadmap, including build vs. buy and platform recommendations

Advise on data platform strategy and vendor/tooling choices at a strategic level, without needing to build or administer any platform directly

Partner with senior stakeholders across the business, Technology, Risk, and Compliance to align data initiatives with commercial priorities

Identify opportunities to monetise data and enable advanced analytics, reporting, and AI/ML use cases

Advise internal teams on data strategy best practice, acting as a strategic subject-matter expert rather than a line manager or hands-on engineer

Inform data architecture and platform decisions at a strategic level, working alongside technical teams who own implementation

Drive measurable improvements in data maturity through clearly defined roadmaps and outcomes

Act as a bridge between technical data teams and non-technical business/executive stakeholders

Nice to Have

Experience in banking, insurance, or another regulated financial services environment

Familiarity with the broader modern data stack (eg Cloud data warehouses, DBT, Airflow) at a strategic/advisory level

Experience with data monetisation, AI/ML enablement, or advanced analytics strategy

Active industry engagement (speaking, panels, thought leadership on data strategy)

Experience

Extensive experience (15+ years) in data strategy, analytics, or technology consulting roles, ideally within a regulated industry, including senior/executive-adjacent mandates

Proven track record shaping and delivering data strategy, data platform, or data monetisation programmes

Strong working knowledge of modern cloud data platforms and the broader data ecosystem at an advisory level - hands-on build/admin experience is not required

Strong commercial acumen combined with senior stakeholder management experience

Experience operating in large, complex, or federated organisational structures

Demonstrated ability to build a data strategy and roadmap from the ground up

Strong communicator, comfortable presenting to senior leadership and executive committees