Business Analyst

Scottish Government; Galashiels; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible and hybrid working

Job summary

SPPA in Scotland is seeking a Senior Business Analyst to help deliver business and digital change across Scotland's public service pension schemes. You will analyse business needs, identify opportunities for improvement and translate complex requirements into practical solutions for stakeholders and users.

You will work with project teams across departments, contribute to acceptance testing and training, and support continuous improvement within SPPA's modern, hybrid workplace designed to enable

Qualifications

• Defining and managing business needs and requirements at practitioner level.

Responsibilities

• Understand the current SPPA operating environment and identify future needs.
• Validate and verify requirements with stakeholders and ensure quality standards.
• Collaborate across departments to assess impact of changes.

Skills

Business analysis

Requirements gathering

Stakeholder engagement

Job description

Shape the future of Scotland's public service pensions by turning complex challenges into innovative solutions that make a real difference to hundreds of thousands of members.

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) administers pensions for Scottish Teachers, Police, Firefighters' and National Health Service employees on behalf of the Scottish Government. We’re responsible for protecting the financial futures of over half a million people - that’s around 1 in 10 people in Scotland. If you’re looking for meaningful work, a supportive environment and a career with purpose, you’ll find it at the SPPA. Our office is based in Tweedbank in the Scottish Borders, the train station is a short two-minute walk away and offers regular services to and from Edinburgh Waverley, making it a convenient and well-connected location for commuters. The surrounding area offers access to green space, walking routes and a strong sense of local community, supporting wellbeing both in and outside of work. Our modern office building is designed to support flexible and collaborative working, with spaces for teamwork, quiet focus and hybrid working. Colleagues benefit from a comfortable, welcoming environment that reflects our commitment to wellbeing and inclusion.

As a Business Analyst within SPPA, you will play a key role in delivering business and digital change across Scotland's public service pension schemes. Working closely with stakeholders, project teams and users, you will analyse business needs, identify opportunities for improvement and translate complex requirements into practical solutions. You'll help shape services, systems and processes that support the delivery of pension benefits to hundreds of thousands of public sector employees, while contributing to SPPA's wider transformation and continuous improvement agenda.

Responsibilities

The post has three defined accountabilities:

• Understand the current organisational and operational situation of SPPA, identify future needs and create solutions to help meet those needs, usually (but not always) in relation to information and software systems.
• Validating and verifying requirements – making sure that all requirements map to the business need being addressed, they are approved by all the appropriate stakeholders and that they meet with relevant quality standards.
• Collaborate across departments when establishing requirements and impacting change.

Principal Accountabilities

• Identifying system and process design changes by conducting business and system analysis at a detailed level, using robust tools and approaches.
• Creating functional and non-functional requirements documentation, user stories and test cases and clearly explaining them to stakeholders, including developers, testers and management.
• Engaging effectively with users and customer representatives to generate high quality research, documents and shares the outcomes of user research.
• Contributes to selection of the user research approaches for projects and initiatives and plans own user research activities.
• Building and maintaining a deep understanding and awareness of how SPPA business operations function and helping stakeholders to explore technology and process improvements that will allow them to more effectively execute their roles.
• Supporting project teams during all phases of the project delivery lifecycle including performing and advising on acceptance testing and preparing and delivering training and handover material.
• Acquiring in-depth knowledge of products and services delivered by SPPA and act as liaison between business users and SPPA IT / Project teams.
• Contribute to the Agency continuous improvement approach and evaluating and incorporating improvement suggestions into projects.
• Assisting with the production of Impact Analysis and Business Case production.
• Fully comply with all policies and procedures of SG including Procurement principles and participate in negotiating terms of contracts.
• Leading by example in the development of staff behaviours that result in the organisational and cultural change driving SPPA to provide a team approach to all that we do.
• Actively contribute to the delivery of the Agency’s corporate strategy and plan with strong leadership, through co-operation and communication with the wider SPPA management team.
• In line with organisational needs, work as part of a flexible team to perform other duties as required.

Success Profile

Success profiles are specific to each job and they include the mix of behaviours, experience and technical criteria (if applicable) the candidates will be assessed on.

Technical / Professional Skills

This post is aligned to the Business Analyst at the Senior Business Analyst level in the Product & Delivery family. Read the technical skills for this role in the GDD role and capability information.

At stage one, only the below technical element will be scored for the technical / professional skills section:

1. Defining and managing business needs, user needs and requirements - Level: Practitioner

Candidates who pass the sift will receive information about the full technical assessment and competency-based interview.

Behaviours

1. Communicating and influencing - Level 3
2. Changing and improving - Level 3

You can find out more about the behaviours here: Candidate Guide

Recruitment Principles

As a government organisation, we adhere to the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles and we investigate any complaints received in relation to recruitment cases.

About Us

At the SPPA, we are committed to The Fair Work Framework.

This means offering:

• Security and stability
• Flexible and hybrid working options
• Opportunities to learn and develop
• A respectful and inclusive working environment

At the SPPA we want our workforce to be representative of Scottish society and we strive to be a workplace where people are welcomed and valued for the contribution they make.

We support flexible working and encourage applications from people from all backgrounds, including those starting their careers, changing careers, or returning to work.

We are committed to removing any barriers to applying for our jobs and aim to offer support and make reasonable adjustments to allow full participation in the recruitment process.

Our staff are part of the UK Civil Service observing the Civil Service Code and working for Ministers and senior stakeholders to deliver vital public services which improve the lives of the people of Scotland.

We offer a supportive and inclusive working environment along with a wide range of employee benefits. Find out more about what we offer.

As part of the UK Civil Service, we uphold the Civil Service Nationality Rules.

You can also find out more about careers at the SPPA here - SPPA Careers | SPPA (pensions.gov.scot)

Working Pattern

Our standard hours are 35 hours per week. We offer a range of flexible and hybrid working options, with two days minimum working on site at SPPA. If you have specific questions about the role you are applying for, please contact us.

Security Checks

Successful candidates must complete the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS), before they can be appointed. BPSS is comprised of four main pre-employment checks – Identity, Right to work, Employment History and a Criminal Record check (unspent convictions).

You can find out more about BPSS on the UK Government website, or read about the different levels of security checks in our Candidate Guide.

Sponsorship

Skilled Worker sponsorship is not available for this role. As a result, we are unable to appoint candidates who require Skilled Worker sponsorship now or in the future. Applicants must have an existing and ongoing right to work in the UK.

Equality Statement

We are committed to equality and inclusion and we aim to recruit a diverse workforce that reflects the population of our nation.

Find out more about our commitment to diversity and how we offer and support recruitment adjustments for anyone who needs them.

Further Information

Find out more about our organisation, what we offer staff members and how to apply on our Careers Website.

Read our Candidate Guide for further information on our recruitment and application processes.

We will hold a reserve list for this post for 12 months.

Apply Before: 10 November 2026 (23:59) - This role is open to internal candidates and Common Citizenship organisations only.