Lead SAS Administrator

THE NEXT CHAPTER STARTS WITH YOU

Lead SAS Administrator (12 Month FTC)

Lead the reliability, security and modernisation of the analytical platforms that power critical decisions across Vanquis

This is an opportunity to take visible technical ownership of a platform estate that supports analysts and business teams across Vanquis Bank, Moneybarn and PFG. You will combine deep SAS administration expertise with practical leadership, helping colleagues run critical analytical processes reliably while shaping the next stage of our cloud journey.

Working within Data Engineering and reporting to the Senior Analytical Platforms Manager, you will join a small team of SAS administrators. With no direct reports, your influence will come through technical authority, trusted advice and the ability to bring people together around complex platform decisions.

You will help protect today’s service while contributing to the migration from Base SAS 9.4 on-premises to SAS Viya 4 on Microsoft Azure. It is a role with broad stakeholder exposure, meaningful ownership and the chance to improve resilience, security, performance and cost effectiveness at scale.

Vanquis is continuing to modernise its technology and data capabilities. This role sits at the centre of that change, connecting established SAS services with a more flexible cloud-based future and ensuring the transition is controlled, dependable and valuable for users.

Reliable analytical platforms underpin decision-making, customer outcomes and essential business processes. This role exists to provide senior technical ownership across a mixed on-premises and Azure SAS estate at an important point in its evolution. Your work will reduce operational and security risk, improve the experience of a wide user base and help Vanquis move towards SAS Viya on Azure without losing the stability the business depends on.

You will work regularly with Engineering Leads, Heads of Department, business stakeholders, Infrastructure, Solution and Cloud Architects, Data Engineers, Business Analysts, Project Managers and external partners. That visibility gives you the opportunity to influence both day-to-day service quality and longer-term platform direction.

• Extensive experience administering enterprise SAS platforms, including strong hands-on experience with SAS 9.x and relevant experience with SAS Viya.
• Demonstrable experience supporting, troubleshooting and performance-tuning SAS across Windows and Linux infrastructure.
• Experience operating cloud-based analytical platforms, ideally SAS Viya 4 on Microsoft Azure.
• Practical experience of upgrades, patching, licensing, certificate renewal, security controls, resilience and capacity planning.
• Ability to investigate complex production issues, complete root cause analysis and drive sustainable remediation.
• Experience supporting data pipelines and integrations involving SAS, Azure and SQL-based data platforms.
• Confidence working independently from high-level requirements while coordinating multiple priorities and planned changes.
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including architects, engineers, project teams and business users.
• A collaborative approach to knowledge sharing, mentoring and improving team standards.

• SAS Certified Platform Administrator and/or SAS Certified Base Programmer credentials.
• PowerShell, SAS Macro and SQL pass-through experience, including query optimisation.
• Knowledge of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Azure Synapse, Apache NiFi, SAN or Lustre technologies.
• Experience in banking, financial services or another environment handling large, business-critical data volumes.
• Experience with automation, automated testing and Agile delivery methods such as Scrum or Kanban.

You will deepen your expertise across SAS Viya 4, Azure, platform automation, security, resilience and performance engineering. The role offers exposure to strategic migration work, architecture and senior business stakeholders, alongside opportunities to shape standards, influence technology choices and mentor colleagues. Over time, this experience can support progression into broader analytical platform leadership, cloud platform engineering, data architecture or specialist consultancy pathways.

If you are an experienced SAS administrator who enjoys solving complex platform challenges, influencing change and helping others succeed, we would love to hear from you.

Our Talent Acquisition team manages all recruitment activity directly. We work with approved recruitment partners where additional support is required.

Unsolicited CVs submitted without prior agreement from Vanquis Talent Acquisition will be considered direct applications and no agency fees will be payable.

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