The posting
The company
Small businesses move fast. Opportunities often don’t wait, and cash flow pressures can appear overnight. To keep going, and growing, SMEs need finance that’s as flexible and responsive as they are.
That's why we built iwoca. Our smart technology, data science and five-star customer service ensures business owners can act with the speed, confidence and control they need, exactly when it's needed.
We’ve already cleared the way for 100,000 businesses with more than £4 billion in funding. Our passionate team is driven to help even more SMEs succeed, through access to better finance and other services that make running a business easier. Our ultimate mission is to support one million SMEs in their defining moments, creating lasting impact for the communities and economies they drive.
The team
The Compliance team’s mission is to keep iwoca a safe and trusted lender for UK small businesses, and to make the compliant path the easy path for the teams we work with.
We make sure iwoca meets its regulatory obligations, particularly the financial crime, sanctions and data protection requirements that apply across our suite of products and services.
We are the second line of defence for the UK business. We advise the people building and running the business on what the rules require, set the policies and standards they work to, and test whether what happens in practice matches them. We work alongside the product teams so that each product meets its obligations and can grow.
Data protection is central to what we do. We hold the data privacy function for the UK business and own how iwoca handles personal data end to end: the lawful basis for how customer, applicant and third-party data is used; data subject access requests and other individual rights; personal data breaches; retention and deletion; records of processing; marketing and consent; the privacy review of new products and features; and the governance of automated decisioning and AI tooling.
How we work:
- We enable rather than block. The answer is rarely just “no” — it’s what it would take to get to yes, and what the firm is accepting if it goes ahead anyway.
- We go to the source. Positions are grounded in the actual rule, regulation or guidance, and we can show where they come from.
- We’re proportionate. Controls match the risk in front of us. We don’t build process for its own sake.
- We’re close to the business. We work directly with Tech, Data, Credit, Operations and Legal, and we want to be in the room early rather than at the end.
The role
As Data Privacy Analyst you will run iwoca’s day-to-day UK data protection work and help the business apply UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and PECR in practice. Your primary focus will be the statutory core: data subject access requests, data protection impact assessments, legitimate interests assessments, personal data breaches and records of processing.
The role is not only to run that work but to improve it. A significant part of the job is identifying where our privacy operations could be automated, supported by AI or otherwise improved, assessing what each option would take and what it would mean for compliance, and specifying it well enough for our Tech and Data teams to deliver.
There is real room for the role to grow: as you build credibility, so does the scope, towards owning areas of the framework outright, leading on AI and automation governance, and taking a larger advisory remit across the business.
You will report to the Data Privacy Manager and work closely with the Head of Compliance who also acts as iwoca’s DPO, so you will have experienced support on the harder judgement calls. This is a hands-on role and the work is visible — much of it goes to senior stakeholders or to the regulator.
Impact and influence
- Individual rights and data breaches. Own data subject access requests from intake to response — scoping the search, applying exemptions and meeting the statutory deadline — along with erasure, rectification and objection requests. Triage and investigate suspected personal data breaches, assess them against the 72-hour notification test, and keep the breach register accurate.
- Privacy assessments and advice. Assist with DPIAs, legitimate interests assessments and other privacy reviews on new products, features, suppliers and data flows. Be an accessible first point of contact for teams across iwoca with a data protection question, and give them an answer they can act on, early enough to shape what they build.
- Records, policies and reporting. Keep the record of processing activities accurate as the business changes, hold the retention and deletion schedules to account, review data processing agreements with suppliers, help maintain our data protection policies and standards, and produce the privacy reporting that goes to senior stakeholders.
- AI and automated decisioning. Help assess AI tooling and automated decision-making across lending and operations: what personal data goes in, what lawful basis supports it, what the model does with it, and what rights customers have over the outcome. That includes the risks specific to these systems — decisions taken without meaningful human involvement, bias in outcomes, unreliable model output — and recommending how we address them.
- Automation and improvement. Identify the manual steps in our privacy operations that should not be manual, assess the options, and set out the requirements and compliance implications clearly enough for Tech and Data to deliver them.
The requirements
Essential skills
- Experience. Experience in data protection or privacy operations, or in a compliance, legal, risk or operational role where data protection was a real part of the job.
- Data protection knowledge. A solid practical understanding of UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and PECR, and of how the ICO expects firms to apply them. Familiarity with the changes made by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is an advantage.
- Privacy operations and assessments. Hands-on experience of statutory work: DSARs, DPIAs, legitimate interests assessments, breach handling, ROPA maintenance or data processing agreement review. You may not have done all of these — but we want to see that you have done some of them properly.
- AI and automation. A real interest in, and working understanding of, how data protection law applies to AI and automated decision-making. Enough technical fluency to see where a manual process could be automated, set out what is needed, and hold your own in a conversation with engineers.
- Stakeholder management: Comfortable dealing directly with product, engineering, marketing, credit and operations teams, and able to give a non-specialist a clear answer they can act on rather than a legal summary.
Bonus:
- Sector experience. Financial services or fintech, ideally in lending or payments.
- Credentials. A privacy or AI qualification such as CIPP/E, CIPM, or ICO-recognised practitioner certificates — or working towards one.
- Practical tooling. Experience using Claude Code, LLMs or privacy management platforms.
The culture
At iwoca, we prioritise a culture of learning, growth, and support, and invest in the development of our team members. We value thought and skill diversity, and encourage people to explore new areas of interest, adopt better tools – including AI – and apply sound judgement so our products and decisions improve over time.
The offices
We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a great place to work:
- Offices in London, Leeds, Berlin, and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks.
- Events and community-led groups, including running groups, padel, and monthly ping-pong and pool competitions.
The benefits
- Flexible working hours.
- Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.
- A choice between a dedicated dental plan or a health cash plan that reimburses everyday medical expenses.
- A private GP service (separate from Vitality) for you, your partner, and your dependents.
- 25 days’ holiday per year, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional five days of annual leave, and unlimited unpaid leave.
- A one-month, fully paid sabbatical after four years.
- Instant access to external counselling and therapy sessions for team members that need emotional or mental health support.
- 3% Pension contributions on total earnings.
- An employee equity incentive scheme.
- Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money.
- Electric car scheme and cycle to work scheme.
- Two company retreats a year: we’ve been to France, Italy, Spain, and further afield.
And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:
- A learning and development budget for everyone.
- Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers.
- Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.
Useful links:
- iwoca benefits & policies https://coda.io/@iwocauk/iwoca-benefits-policies-uk
- Interview welcome pack https://coda.io/@iwocauk/interview-welcome-pack-tap
