Lead Credit Risk Analyst
About the role
We're working with a fast‑growing UK consumer lending business that sits within a highly respected financial services group. While the group itself is well established, this particular lending arm operates much more like a scale‑up - small, capable teams, high autonomy, and a strong bias toward execution over process.
They're looking for a Lead Credit Risk Analyst to play a key role in shaping and optimising credit strategy across a growing consumer lending portfolio (including motor finance). This is a hands‑on, non‑managerial role, aimed at someone with the seniority and confidence to take ownership of decisions and drive change end‑to‑end.
In simple terms, this role suits someone who can have a short conversation about a problem, immediately understand what needs to be done, and go away and execute - without heavy direction or hand‑holding.
What you'll be doing
* Owning credit and underwriting strategy decisions end‑to‑end, including credit policy, lending criteria and decisioning rules
* Identifying performance issues or opportunities, proposing changes, and driving them through to implementation
* Spending a significant amount of time hands‑on in SQL (and/or Python) to analyse portfolio performance, approvals, losses and risk drivers
* Balancing growth, profitability, automation and risk appetite in a regulated consumer lending environment
* Writing clear, structured, data‑backed proposals or papers and presenting recommendations to senior stakeholders and governance forums
* Operating in a fast‑moving environment with evolving priorities, limited bureaucracy and a high degree of personal responsibility
This is not a role focused on people management - it's about doing the work, owning the outcome, and seeing the direct impact of your decisions.
What we're looking for
* Strong experience in credit risk / credit strategy within consumer lending (motor finance experience would be beneficial but is not essential)
* Clear examples of credit strategy or policy decisions you personally owned, rather than only supporting or analysing
* Evidence of initiating and delivering change, not just recommending it
* Comfortable influencing senior stakeholders through well‑structured, evidence‑led proposals
* Confident, hands‑on SQL user (you write and run your own queries; you don't rely on a separate data team)
* A mindset suited to pace, accountability and autonomy - this role will not suit someone who prefers highly structured, slow‑moving environments
Package & working pattern
* Salary circa £65,000, plus participation in a share scheme
* Ideally once a week in Cardiff, but once a month is workable for the right candidate based further away
* High visibility, genuine influence, and scope to help shape how the portfolio evolves over time
If you're looking for a credit risk role where you truly own decisions rather than advise on them, and where execution matters as much as analysis, this is likely to be of interest.
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