Business Analyst

About Sand

Sand Technologies is a global Physical AI company using data and AI to make critical industries work better. We partner with governments, cities and enterprises to improve how essential systems operate across healthcare, water, energy, telecommunications and infrastructure.

Our work delivers proven real-world impact. We have built AI systems that help manage London’s water supply, supported telecom network planning across hundreds of cities, and developed digital healthcare platforms serving tens of millions of people across Africa. From intelligent command centers to AI-powered infrastructure platforms, we help organizations sense, analyze and act in complex environments.

Our people are ambitious, curious and relentlessly practical. Our teams work alongside clients in the field, solving hard problems and deploying solutions that last. With colleagues across Africa, Europe, the UK and the US, we operate across the full stack - from research and engineering to deployment and capability building.

Our mission is simple: to harness AI to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges.

About the role

We are hiring a Senior Business Analyst to lead strategic and consulting work streams within our UK utilities practice. This is a permanent role. Your first assignment is a high-profile engagement with a major UK water utility, supporting delivery of an AI-enabled situational awareness and decision support tool for the client’s operational control room. From there you will continue to grow with our expanding portfolio of water and energy utility clients. The wider delivery squads are distributed; this role is the onshore, client-facing anchor of the analysis function, spending regular time on site with clients in South West England and beyond.

This is a senior BA role with a strategy-consulting edge. Working alongside the Delivery Lead and Technical Lead, you will own requirements and process analysis, shape the strategic narrative, and maintain the link between what the squad builds and the business case it was sold on – including regulatory performance commitments such as pollution incident reduction and self-reporting. You will guide junior analysts, support delivery BAs, and provide the context and documentation that QA teams need as they onboard.

You are expected to operate semi-autonomously: bring a point of view, resolve scope, stakeholder and quality challenges without defaulting to escalation, and build client confidence through reliable, outcome-focused engagement.

What you’ll do

Requirements & Strategic Analysis

• Own requirements discovery, process mapping (As-Is/To-Be) and the strategic narrative for the engagement, translating the client’s operational needs into clear, prioritised delivery requirements.
• Write, refine and validate user stories and acceptance criteria with the delivery team, and keep the backlog aligned to business outcomes across near, mid and far horizons.
• Maintain the benefits and business-case linkage throughout delivery, framing sprint reviews and steering discussions around measurable value against the client’s regulatory and operational targets.

Client Engagement & Facilitation

• Act as a senior, client-facing point of contact on-site, building trust with operational, technical and executive stakeholders and representing the delivery team day to day.
• Independently design and facilitate requirements workshops, process walkthroughs and design sessions with control-room operators, data owners and business sponsors.
• Proactively communicate progress, scope changes and risks; manage complex, multi-level stakeholder relationships across client and delivery organisations.

Delivery, Quality & Team

• Produce and maintain the analytical artefact estate: BRDs, FSDs, process models, playbooks and reusable documentation to consistent standards.
• Support User Acceptance Testing, consolidate stakeholder feedback, and help secure client sign-off on delivered features.
• Provide context and documentation to support QA onboarding during delivery.
• Guide and mentor junior analysts on analytics and reporting support, and raise the bar on BA standards, templates and ways of working across the practice.

Who you are

• 10+ years of business analysis experience, including senior/lead roles on complex, multi-stakeholder client engagements, ideally with a consulting background.
• Proven track record executing the full requirements lifecycle – from discovery and process analysis through to UAT and sign-off – on software or data/AI delivery programmes.
• A strategy edge: comfortable framing business cases, benefits realisation and value tracking, not just documenting requirements.
• Excellent facilitation, presentation and written communication skills – credible in the room with executive sponsors and on the floor with operational teams.
• High autonomy: able to lead a workstream, navigate scope challenges constructively, and know when (and when not) to escalate.
• Proficiency with backlog and documentation tooling (Azure DevOps or Jira, Confluence, Miro or equivalent).
• Based in the UK with the right to work in the UK, and able to spend regular time on-site specifically in and around Exeter.

Desirable

• Water, utilities or other regulated/asset-intensive sector experience - particularly operational or control-room environments.
• Business analysis certifications from recognised bodies (IIBA, PMI or similar).
• Experience on data, analytics or AI delivery programmes (cloud data platforms, BI/analytics dashboards).
• Experience mentoring junior analysts and building BA practice standards.

How we work

Due to the highly collaborative and internationally distributed nature of our work, successful candidates must be comfortable operating in small teams while contributing to larger, globally coordinated efforts. A strong sense of ownership, self-motivation and discipline in maintaining clear and consistent communication through virtual collaboration tools and video conferencing is essential.