Group Strategy & Planning
What we do
How we're structured
The roles we recruit for most often
What we look for
Your career prospects
Where you’d work
It’s Group Strategy and Planning’s job is to help the Board develop Corporate Strategy and produce the Corporate Plan. We do this by –
- working with all divisions across the Group to develop strategies and plans that support business objectives
- analysing the economic and market conditions in which we operate
- analysing our competitors, key market trends and new market activity
- leading all merger, acquisition and disposal activity across the Group
- supporting many parts of the business on specific projects such as capital management and analysis of the mortgage market.
We are also well known as commentators on the Housing market with the House Price and Consumer Confidence Indices. Fionnuala Earley and Martin Gabhauer, our two economists, are experts on the UK housing market and quoted widely in the press.
On top of this we support the CEO and other Directors to research and prepare presentations on a wide range of business issues.
The team is headed by a divisional director who currently has two direct reports.
- the Group Strategist – leads the team of economists and business analysts who work on markets, the economy and competitors
- the Group Planner – leads the development of the planning activity and supports the divisional director by project managing a number of initiatives.
The third direct report, who usually leads all M&A activity, is currently on secondment to Treasury.
The roles we recruit for most often
In the main we recruit Economists and Analysts who analyse mortgage and savings markets, the economy and our competitors.
You’ll need to be highly numerate with an economics or related degree and a background in economics, investment banking or finance. A key skill is being able to identify relevant issues from a mass of data.
You’ll work with senior people across the business and get an overview of key decision making. This will help you make the most of opportunities to move in to other areas. In the last year we’ve had staff progress into Credit Card, Savings and Marketing. We also recruit from across the business.
You’d be based in our Swindon Head Office but may well travel occasionally to some of our other sites. Economists often need to spend two to three days a month in London.