Identify Solutions
Cardiff, South Glamorgan
May 23, 2026
Full time
Lead Credit Risk Analyst About the role 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. What you'll be doing 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. What we're looking for 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 Package & working pattern 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.