Senior Portfolio Analyst

Kent, England, United Kingdom

8/6/2025

This is the Internal Only Recruitment Site for UK Research and Innovation Staff for roles within Innovate UK (UKRI).

Please apply for jobs via this site only if you are employed by UK Research and Innovation (employees with access to Innovate UK's Workday system may apply via the "Careers" application within the system).

If you are not a current UKRI employee you can view vacancies at the externally advertised stage at the links given in the "About Us information on the right". If you wish to apply for the position below, please ensure that you comply with the requirements of the recruitment process by submitting both a full CV and application letter. Ideally, you should also advise your manager of your application.

Applications must be submitted by

18-08-2025

Senior Portfolio Analyst

Reporting to the Deputy Head of Innovation Finance Insights, you will be part of a team with responsibility for delivering Innovation Loans and Investor Partnerships.

• Please note this advert will close on the 17th August 2025 at 23.59pm.
  
  

Watch our video Why Join Innovate UK? here.

Title: Senior Portfolio Analyst

Band: UKRI Band E (UKRI Ts & Cs)

Salary: £45,272 gross per annum

Reports to: Deputy Head of Innovation Finance Insights

Location: Field based

Contract: Permanent

Innovate UK recognises the importance of work-life balance and we will be happy to discuss any requests for flexible working arrangements.

Team

Innovate UK Loans Limited is a wholly-owned subsidiary of UKRI tasked with delivering Innovate UKs new innovation finance offer, bringing together debt, investment, credit and operational expertise from within Innovate UK and the wider commercial finance sector. The interventions delivered by the team are designed to enable businesses to bring their innovations to market, through addressing the finance gap facing innovative companies and supporting later stage experimental development through to commercial success.

Job Purpose

Reporting to the Deputy Head of Innovation Finance Insights , you will be part of a team with responsibility for delivering Innovation Loans and Investor Partnerships. These aim to meet the objectives of Innovate UK and UKRI within the context of the Governments Innovation strategy.

• Innovation loans enable businesses to bring their innovations to market, through addressing the finance gap facing innovative companies and supporting later stage experimental development through to commercial success.
• Investor partnerships align public sector support through grants for R&D projects with private investment from selected investors to enable SMEs to grow at scale through innovation.
  
  

As a senior portfolio analyst, you will be involved in hands-on data analysis and strategic oversight, ensuring the effective use of data to support business cases, programme evaluations, and policy development. Additionally, you will play a key role in shaping data governance processes, improving data management practices, and developing new analytical capabilities with internal and external stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities And Accountabilities

• Advocate data governance and data management standards and guidelines within your teams products and services
• Using tools and techniques to visualize data in easy-to-understand formats
• Developing processes that support good governance around the management of annual reviews, arrears and funding assurance activities
• Prepare reports for the management stating trends, patterns, and predictions using relevant data
• Communicating with stakeholders to understand data content and business requirements
• Support the financial and operational analysis required to further portfolio decisions and business case submissions
• Identification of specific measures and mechanisms in line the Portfolio Risk Approach
• Assess portfolio performance in short and long-term recognizing key risks and opportunities
• Analysis of customer behaviour, for the purpose of generating portfolio insights
• Work with management to prioritize business and information needs
  
  

This is an outline description of the key responsibilities and accountabilities involved in the job. This is not an exhaustive list and the post-holder might be expected to undertake any other duties across the wider directorate, commensurate with the Band and level of responsibility of this post, for which the post holder has the necessary experience and/or training.

Shortlisting criteria

(S) Assessed at shortlisting

(I) Assessed at interview

(S&I) Assessed at both shortlisting and interview

Person Specification

We welcome CVs from a variety of backgrounds and applicants are not required to tick each box listed below:

Experience & Qualifications

Essential -

• Working within a thorough process to deliver great customer service (S)
• Prioritising workloads and working to tight deadlines (S&I)
• Experience of delivering board standard portfolio reporting (S&I)
• Experience in the financial services sector, with an understanding of operational processes and lending/investment activities (S)
• Knowledge and experience of public sector funding for SMEs (S)
• Accomplished user of Advanced Microsoft Excel, Power Automate and Power BI (S&I)
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect data analysis to strategic decisions (S&I)
  
  

Desirable -

• Dealing with customer queries, recognizing when to provide an early response and when to escalate for advice (I)
• Understanding of project management and financial accounts (I)
• Experience of working with public sector stakeholders, including managing public money contexts (S)
  
  

Competencies

All team members demonstrate compatibility with and capability against our Core Competencies such as:

Thinking and Problem Solving Stakeholder management Communication skills Influencing Self-awareness/self-management Strategic awareness Working with others Project management

Some of the above competencies will be assessed at interview stage, in addition to the criterias listed in the person specification.

Travel Requirements

Field-based: There will a requirement to travel, mostly national, and there is some flexibility in this. Innovate UK staff make extensive use of telepresence tools for meetings to minimise unnecessary travel.

Equality, Diversity And Inclusion

Innovate UK is a diverse workforce of people. We believe that encouraging these differences and drawing the best from them will build a productive environment in which everyone feels valued, where talents are fully utilised and in which organisational goals are met. Underpinning this is a belief that it is a fundamental right for everyone to be treated equally, with fairness, respect and dignity. We will act directly and use our influence to ensure that this right is promoted and upheld; we encourage applications from all those who meet the criteria set-out in our role profiles.

Equal Opportunities

We are an equal opportunities employer, committed to employing any person who meets the criteria for our roles. When undertaking recruitment we may require applicants to undertake certain tests or assessments, some of which will be online and others may be in-person. If you have a disability, heath condition or specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia then you may be entitled to support with undertaking this type of assessment exercise. Where you feel that reasonable adjustments are required to support you, we ask that you advise your recruitment point of contact in a timely fashion, providing further information. In confidence, Innovate UK will then review your application for adjustments and provide support as required.

UK Research And Innovation

Innovate UK is partner organisation within UK Research and Innovation. If successful in securing the position, your employer will be UK Research and Innovation. More information can be found online http://www.ukri.org/.

Employee Benefits

We offer a benefits package crafted to provide an excellent work/life balance. This includes 30 days annual leave, 10.5 public and privilege days, flexible working hours, an exceptional defined benefit pension scheme, and access to a variety of support networks and discount schemes.

Benefits of working at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

Flexible Working

We understand the importance of work-life balance, and are happy to discuss the possibility of flexible working with applicants.

Pre-employment Screening

To enable us to hire the very best people we will conduct a comprehensive pre-employment check on successful applicants as part of the recruitment process.

The role holder will be required to have the appropriate level of security screening/vetting required for the role. UKRI reserves the right to run or re-run security clearance as required during the course of employment.

UKRI supports research in areas that include animal health, agriculture and food security, and bioscience for health which includes research on animals, genetic modification and stem cell research. Whilst you may not have direct involvement in this type of research, you should consider how this aligns with your personal values or beliefs. To enable us to hire the very best people we will conduct a full and comprehensive pre-employment check as a crucial part of the recruitment process on all individuals that are offered a position with UKRI. This will include a security check and an extreme organisations affiliation check.

Applications must be submitted by;

18-08-2025

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