Head of Analytics

Head of Analytics | Last Mile | Hybrid Working | Hatfield

Introduction

We are Ocado Group, and we're bringing world-class automation to online grocery. Our Ocado Smart Platform (OSP) combines cutting-edge robotics, AI, and IoT within our advanced CFCs (Customer Fulfilment Centres). We've mastered the single pick, transforming online delivery for our global partners. Join us and be part of a team pushing the boundaries of retail technology.

About the Role

As the Head of Analytics for Last Mile, you will take full ownership of the insight agenda for one of the most operationally intensive domains at Ocado. Last Mile oversees the critical final stage of our operation - ensuring the right orders reach the right customers on time - and encompasses delivery routing, fleet operations, slot management, and performance tracking across our global partners.

This is a highly influential, cross-functional position sitting on the Data & Analytics leadership team. While our underlying AI capability is already advanced, this role is less about inventing the technology and heavily focused on the human and operational element: turning advanced capabilities into tangible business value, driving stakeholder adoption, and bringing together teams that do not normally work closely together.

You will drive delivery through influence rather than direct authority, collaborating closely with VP-level leaders across Product, Engineering, and Partner Success, as well as peer Heads of Analytics in Fulfilment and Ecommerce. Additionally, you will ensure solutions are built in a way that serves Ocado Retail today, with a view to potentially releasing successful solutions to external Ocado partners in the future.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive Last-Mile Efficiency: Conceptualize opportunities, develop strategic approaches, and pull together the right cross-functional teams to optimize current operations.
• Deliver Operational Value: Drive initiatives focused on turning advanced analytical/AI capabilities into operational reality, including improving store operations, maximizing fulfillment efficiency, and optimizing the use of chiller totes and capacity.
• Enable Better Decision-Making: Enable a higher volume of orders to be successfully fulfilled through better operational and data-driven decisions.
• Lead and Develop the Team: Manage the Last Mile analytics team, establishing clear standards for work prioritization, scoping, and communication.
• Nurture Talent: Oversee the technical and communication development of analysts to ensure insights are actionable, highly impactful, and easily understood by the business.
• Foster an Experimentation Culture: Champion a culture of innovation and experimentation, negotiating decision rights, setting clear evidence standards, and encouraging testing over instinctual decision-making.
• Manage AI Foundations: Own the semantic and context layers for Last Mile, ensuring business definitions and metric logic remain accurate so AI-generated outputs align seamlessly with real-world operations.
• Optimise Feedback Loops: Work with the central AI enablement function to design and maintain tight feedback loops between AI outputs and ground truth, helping stakeholders adopt and use these tools confidently.

What We're Looking For:

Essential

• Complex Stakeholder Management & Influence: A background in management consultancy or a similarly complex multi-stakeholder environment. Proven ability to operate in complex environments, structure ambiguous problems, create alignment around a shared vision, and comfortably challenge existing thinking at a senior/VP level.
• Influence Without Authority: Exceptional communication and leadership skills, with a track record of driving change and bringing together disparate teams through pure influence rather than direct reporting lines.
• High Energy & Change Leadership: Energetic, charismatic, and collaborative mindset with experience leading an analytics or change function through substantive operational methodology shifts.
• Tech & AI Landscape Literacy: A strong, grounded understanding of current AI tools and data platforms. The ability to distinguish genuinely useful solutions from noise and successfully translate complex AI/data capabilities into commercial, operational business value.
• Analytical Foundations: Solid analytical foundations necessary to set team standards for experimentation, metric architecture, and validating model efficacy alongside Data Science partners.

Nice to Haves

• Domain Familiarity: Experience within operational, logistics, or last-mile environments, bringing strong real-world context to data analysis (highly valued, but a nice-to-have rather than essential).
• Data Science Exposure: History of working alongside data science or machine learning functions, understanding how to bridges analytics and operational modeling.
• Modern Data Tooling Experience: Exposure to semantic layer tooling, data cataloguing, or AI evaluation frameworks.

Benefits:

We believe in supporting our people with meaningful, flexible benefits that prioritise well-being and work-life balance. Here’s a snapshot of what you can expect:

Time to recharge:

• 25 days annual leave (rising to 27 after 5 years), plus the option to buy more – and 30 days a year to work from anywhere in the world.

Health & wellbeing:

• Private Medical Insurance from your first month, wellbeing support through specialist apps and EAP, plus Income Protection and Life Assurance.

Family-first policies:

• 22 weeks paid maternity/primary carer leave and 6 weeks paid paternity leave

Financial support:

• Pension with employer matching up to 7%, share schemes (Sharesave & BAYE), and interest-free loans for train tickets.

Commuter perks:

• Cycle to Work Scheme and free shuttle buses to/from Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City stations.

Exclusive discounts:

• 15% off at Ocado.com with free delivery (starting in your first month).

Be bold, be unique, be brilliant, be you. We are looking for individuality and we value diversity. We are an equal opportunities employer and we are committed to treating all applicants and employees fairly and equally. We are committed to making reasonable adjustments to provide a positive, barrier-free recruitment process and supportive work environment. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of application.

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