Lead Credit Risk Analyst

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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.