Sales Forecast Analyst

Job Description

We’ve been in Britain’s homes for over 200 years. But at British Gas, we’ve never been more excited about the future.

Right now, we’re at a pivotal moment. As well as leading our customers through a once-in-a-generation cost of living crisis, we’ve got big plans to get our homes closer to Net Zero.

We are looking for an experienced Sales Forecast Analyst with a history of working closely with operational stakeholders to understand requirements and business assumptions to build accurate forecasts (short, medium and long term horizons).

The successful candidate should have excellent interpersonal skills, thrive off working closely with the wider business and delivering forecasts and insights through different methods. For example, presenting to senior stakeholders from finance, commercial and the operation, at a monthly cadence while providing extracts more regularly to capacity teams.

The demand our team look to forecast include - but is not limited to - Gas boiler service and repair, boiler/ASHP installations, EV Charger installations, and Electrical Services products including Hive.

Our other Forecast Analysts enjoy working closely with various stakeholders from across the business to ensure we are providing the most accurate forecasts and delivering the most value. They are curious, proactive and enjoy driving continuous improvement in our team, including their own personal development.

The ideal candidate will have strong stakeholder management skills to balance and challenge different stakeholder priorities and assumptions, while clearly communicating technical information to stakeholders with varying levels of technical understanding.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop, implement, and maintain time series forecasting models for various business metrics and products. These will include, but not be limited to,
  • repair & servicing of gas boilers, electrical goods, and plumbing/drains
  • installations for: gas boilers, Net Zero products (ASHP, EV Charge points), SMART meters, and Hive products

• Identify, Analyse and incorporate effective data to account for trends, seasonality, and anomalies. Providing forecasts down to geographical, weekly, daily, hourly where appropriate. Choosing the most appropriate way to aggregate/disaggregate to achieve the greatest accuracy.

• Ensure models are transparent and explainable where possible to provide confidence to stakeholders, and our wider team that are building capacity to our demand forecast.
• Simulate scenarios based on changing assumptions e.g weather, holidays, price, spend
• Monitor, evaluate and improve the accuracy of forecasting models regularly.
• Analysis into drivers of the forecast and their sensitivity
• Responsible for utilising data and insights on sales leakage, conversion and success through a sales journey.
• Help manage relationship with operational planning and Heating installations to ensure aligned forecasts
• Share best practice and stay up-to-date with the forecasting methods, along with the changing requirements in the business, so that application of new models and changes are appropriate and effective.
• Provide insights and recommendations based on forecasting results to stakeholders, utilising the most appropriate presentation method and stakeholder management skills.
• Visualize forecasting results and insights using data visualization tools and techniques.
• Identification of new forecasts to add benefit to field operations

What we are looking for:

• Proven experience with forecasting work, preferably including variables such as weather and geography.
• Excellent forecasting related Excel skills
• Good understanding of basic statistics.
• Familiarity with data visualization tools like Tableau, PowerBI, or similar.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment and manage multiple stakeholders & projects.

It would be great if you also had:

• Experience with intermittent demand forecasting problems
• Proficiency in programming languages such as Python or R.
• Experience with cloud technology such as Azure, AWS, GCP.
• Understanding and willingness to learn statistical modelling and machine learning techniques related to time series data, and related areas e.g. clustering.

We are proud to be recognised as a disability-confident employer. Our customers come from a variety of different backgrounds, and so do we. We hire great people from all walks of life, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our company stronger. We will continue championing inclusivity while investing in our local communities to create a better, more sustainable world for everyone.

We are incredibly proud to have been recognised by The Times for being one of the Top 50 Employers for Women.

Our people are the beating heart of our business. We are incredibly proud of our commitment to being FlexFirst. From childcare to furry friends, we listened to our people and understood that they work best when they are comfortable and have a flexible working model that suits their individual needs. We embrace the opportunity to give our colleagues a choice to work from anywhere whilst still ensuring they can connect and engage with their teams through office days, employee networks and virtual events.

In addition, after listening to what matters most to them, we have tailored our well-being & benefits package around our employees.

💰 Competitive salary and bonus potential
💡 Employee Energy Allowance at 15% of the government price cap
👵 Pension scheme
🚗 Electric car lease scheme
⛱ 33 days holiday allowance, inclusive of public holidays, and the option to buy up to 5 additional days
🏋️‍♀️Excellent range of flexible benefits, including technology vouchers & travel insurance

🌲 We are committed to creating a cleaner and greener future. And we’re making big changes to help us get there. That means cutting customers' emissions and our own to reach net zero. And because our people are the beating heart of our business, we will continue to champion inclusivity, develop future skills and invest in our local communities to create a better world for everyone. As part of our reforestation project with WeForest, for every new employee that joins our family, we plant trees in underprivileged areas in Tanzania to offer farming and wildlife economy opportunities for locals.

#LI-BGAS

At Centrica we embrace diversity and actively seek to attract individuals with unique backgrounds and perspectives. To build a more sustainable future, we need the best team – a team with a diverse mix of people and skills, where everyone feels welcome and able to succeed. We are dedicated in helping to close the diversity gap and would love to see more females, people of colour and LGBTQ+ employees, as well as those from a variety of cultures and ethnicity to veterans and the differently abled. Supporting diversity and inclusion is a big part of who we are, we are not looking for people to fit into our culture but to add to it!

PLEASE APPLY ONLINE by hitting the 'Apply' button.

Applications will ONLY be accepted via the ‘Apply’ button.

This role is being handled by the Centrica recruitment team and NO agency contact is required.