Forecasting Analyst

OVO Energy; Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 31,000 - 40,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading energy provider is seeking a Forecasting Analyst to improve forecast accuracy and contribute to decision-making processes. The role involves collaborating with various teams to optimize capacity planning and requires strong analytical skills and proficiency in Excel and Anaplan. Ideal candidates should have a problem-solving mindset and enjoy working in a dynamic environment. The salary ranges from £31,720 to £40,000, with additional benefits for employee wellbeing.

Benefits

34 days of holiday

Healthcare cash plan

Gym membership

Cycle to work scheme

Bonus of 15% on target

Qualifications

• Ability to tell compelling stories based on forecasts and plans.
• Passionate about creating accurate forecasts.
• Enjoys solving complex modeling problems.

Responsibilities

• Lead monthly forecast refreshes for OVO Fulfillment.
• Develop relationships with demand channels for accurate forecasting.
• Deliver insights on optimizing capacity planning.

Skills

Organised

Communicator

Problem solver

Analytical skills

Attention to detail

Presentation skills

Tools

Google Sheets

Excel

Anaplan

Job description

Forecasting Analyst

Role OVO-View

Team : Fulfil POD

Salary banding : £31,720 - £40,000

Experience : Learner / Mid-level

Working pattern : Full-Time

Reporting to : Forecasting Manager

Sponsorship : Unfortunately we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.

This role in 3 words : Insightful, directing, collaborative

Top 3 qualities for this role : Organised, communicator, problem solver

In the words of the team, you should leave your current role for this one because….

“If you always wanted to be part of a team that supports the whole company to understand direction, quantify expectation and inform strategy whilst being able to explore your own curiosity to enable great service and value for customers - this is the place to come!”

Where you’ll work :

Depending on the needs of your business area, we expect hub based people to be in the office at least once a week, and to go to OVO Connection events in-person.

You’ll be assigned to the closest one of our three hub offices, Bristol, Glasgow, or London; unless your role requires field-based work. Each hub has accessible spaces to park your laptop, is designed to inspire people, help them connect and bring big ideas to life.

Everyone belongs at OVO

At OVO, we are on a mission to solve one of humanity's biggest challenges, the climate crisis. And we know it takes all of us to change the world. That's why we need diverse people from all gender identities, ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, life experiences and backgrounds to join us.

Teamworking for the planet

Everything we do here spins around Plan Zero. So, naturally, the team you’ll be joining plays a gigantic role in making that happen. Here’s how :

The Forecasting and Strategic Planning Team exists to crystalise the dreams, ambitions and capabilities of OVO’s Fulfillment Pod and Operations into clear, well defined, forecasts, plans and targets. This enables OVO to steer a course through very complex challenges

OVO’s Fulfillment Pod and Operation works on a demand led structure where we ensure there is a field based workforce of correctly skilled engineers to the deliver the capacity needed to satisfy numerous energy metering worktypes from Smart meter Installations, meter maintenance through to Electric Vehicle charge point installations

We’re hiring world class change leaders. Each role that we are hiring plays their own part in our mission; our role is to become the best in class energy provider, creating effortless customer experience built on trust and getting things right, first time. We do this through finding and working on the problems that matter most to our customers and employees.

This role in a nutshell :

We are looking for a developing forecaster to join our dynamic Fulfil Pod, where you will join a team of experienced forecasters and analysts.

This meaningful role offers an exciting opportunity to work closely with teams across OVO building a deep understanding of field fulfilment demand, improving forecast accuracy to drive internal decision-making and contributing to the effective pipeline management of capacity availability, opportunities, risks & issues.

You will use strong analytical and critical thinking skills to develop forecasts across multiple demand areas. As our Forecasting & Strategic Planning Analyst, you will play an integral role within Fulfillment, helping senior leaders understand what we have to deliver, when, where and the best match to available capacity. We are seeking a highly skilled forecaster to join our dynamic Fulfil Pod.

Your key outputs will be :

• Lead on monthly forecast refreshes for OVO Fulfillment and the OVO Fulfillment Pod. Navigate in a cross-functional organisation, coordinate inputs from several stakeholders and hold them accountable to established timelines.
• Owning and developing relationships with Demand channels ensuring a good level of understanding of their dependencies, challenges, risks and opportunities. Working collaboratively with the demand owners to deliver high quality forecasts with realistic working assumptions that are transparent and can be positively challenged.
• Deliver key actionable insights on how to optimise capacity planning for Field Services by accounting for the end-to-end customer journey right across Field Services.
• Partnering with teams across Fulfillment and Commercial to ensure the best data is utilised to determine where and when we need to recruit engineers, ensuring we’re aligned with both short and long term needs.
• Improve communication flows between Fulfillment, Care, Asset Management and wider teams to optimise customer experience and cost where gaps exist in planning functions in the operations verticals.
• Establish business priorities, identify and communicate risks and create mitigation and milestone plans in collaboration with stakeholders.
• Partner with forecasters on demand and capacity planning mechanisms, e.g. creation of a workflow to keep engineers optimally productive and balancing waste of underutilisation with over demand to mitigate capacity risks. Clearly communicate dependencies and manage / track exceptions.
• Contribute to your development and the teams’ technical skills by demonstrating inclusive behaviours and establishing a culture of highest performing teams.
• Work with other teams to ensure smooth and consistent reporting across all platforms and own the timely and automated input of actuals into Anaplan.
• Support in maintaining and developing our Anaplan forecast models alongside forecasting model builders.
• Lead the engineer recruitment and backfill process and ensure accurate data on actual engineer headcount.

You’ll be a successful Forecasting Analyst at OVO if you…

• Are comfortable in the world of telling the story of forecasts and plans at a senior leadership level - effectively constructing narratives based on modelled forecasts to effectively communicate insights and recommendations to senior leadership.
• Are passionate about creating accurate forecasts - using insightful data to drive realistic modelling assumptions to deliver real world expectations with the ability to create scenarios and answer “what if…” questions. Great opportunities to use your strong mathematical and analytical skills.
• Love solving complex modelling problems and making a difference through collaboration. Bringing the right skills together to perform analytical deep dives on business issues to identify drivers and trends, extract insight from data and clearly explain their meaning.. Applying the appropriate tools and methods to reach the best outcome and deliver the highest value impact for our customers and business.
• Are keen to develop your own skills and ways of working. We want to help enhance your skills whilst working here, and you’ll have time to do this. We embrace mentoring / coaching and there are ample opportunities for peer to peer and self led learning.
• Have mastery of the key technical skills - demonstrating high skill level and experience using Google Sheets / Excel to create complex forecasting models with a healthy appetite to learn new technical skills.
• Have a real positive attitude and are easily able to connect and interact with people, working in a truly dynamic and exciting team, with a “roll-up your sleeves” approach.
• Have the ability to drive execution with strong attention to details, while keeping focus on the big picture; able to connect the dots across multiple pieces of work.
• Have high proficiency to understand and interrogate workload and manpower data to build feeds and analytical models that will deliver the relevant insights.
• Are comfortable challenging old ways of doing things and constantly finding better ways of working more efficiently and effectively within your team.
• Are able to thrive in a fast paced environment with strong analytics capability / business acumen with ability to understand and interpret information from multiple sources.
• Have excellent presentation, communication and interpersonal skills , with a strong ability to build effective relationships at different levels of the organisation. Comfortable clear communication of headline messages supported by detailed analysis.
• Possess excellent listening skills that enable you to grasp business needs and shape a shared vision for a solution that reflects the pace and quality required.
• Have experience building models in / using Anaplan with hands‑on experience of multi‑dimensional modelling, forecasting tools, business intelligence or analytics techniques / methodologies / tools with plenty of opportunity to develop in these areas.

You won’t like this role if you…

• Aren’t comfortable with ambiguity and fast pace change.
• Are not open to new ways of working, adapting and merging of multiple methodologies.
• Are not constantly thinking about ways to improve or challenge the status quo.
• Are not passionate about contributing to our fight towards zero carbon living.
• Are not able to work in a cross-functional team to understand a problem and get consensus on what needs to be done.

Let’s talk about what’s in it for you

We’ll pay you between £31,720 - £40,000 depending on your specific skills and experience. If your expectations are a little different, have a chat with us!

We keep our pay ranges broad on purpose to give us, and you, flexibility to match your experience to our zero carbon mission.

You’ll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal.

We also offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to help you feel like you belong at OVO…and there’s flex pay. It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits.

Here’s a taster of what’s on offer :

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays).

For your health With benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and more

For your wellbeing With gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more For your lifestyle With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donations

For your home Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargers

For your commute Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing , plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans

Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

For your Belonging

To find better ways to support our people, we need to listen to each other’s experiences and find ways to build a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of this, we have 8 Belonging Networks at OVO. Led by our people, for our people - so when you join OVO, you can play a part - big or small - with any of the Networks. It's up to you.