{"text":[[{"start":9,"text":"Professional football clubs’ share of UK hiring has tripled over the past five years, with a jump in demand for data experts as Britain’s top teams use their growing financial strength to expand their off-field operations."}],[{"start":21,"text":"The clubs have emerged as a bright spot in an otherwise sluggish British jobs market, now accounting for more than seven in every 10,000 roles advertised, up from 2.4 per 10,000 in 2020, according to data from recruitment website Indeed."}],[{"start":37,"text":"Data and analytics make up 5 per cent of the roles advertised by Premier League teams this year, according to job analytics firm Lightcast. This is double the share two years ago."}],[{"start":48.031,"text":"The hiring boom has been fuelled by the deep pockets of Premier League clubs, which have seen revenues soar off the back of strong performances in European competitions and lucrative new commercial deals."}],[{"start":59,"text":"“Data and analytics is an area where clubs have increased their focus to try to find an edge on rival clubs in areas like player recruitment and opposition analysis,” said Jack Kennedy, senior economist at Indeed."}],[{"start":null,"text":"
"}],[{"start":72,"text":"Brighton and Hove Albion, Newcastle United and Manchester United have increased hiring for data and analysis roles the most over the past five years, according to analysis of job postings by Lightcast."}],[{"start":83,"text":"Current openings include a scouting insights analyst at Tottenham Hotspur, described as “a key role in shaping the club’s player recruitment strategy through data-driven analysis and insight”, and a position in Brentford’s insights and strategy department."}],[{"start":97,"text":"Kennedy said Brentford and Brighton, both promoted in the past decade, “really punch above their weight” as they tend to be more effective at using data."}],[{"start":106,"text":"“Both of those club owners made their money as professional gamblers so they’ve always been very data-driven and applied that to owning football clubs,” he added."}],[{"start":115,"text":"“The legacy clubs can almost buy their way out of trouble so if they make a signing that doesn’t work out, they can just spend £100mn on another player. Smaller clubs cannot do that.”"}],[{"start":125.29,"text":"Premier League clubs are set to break the record for transfer spending this summer, with Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur topping the charts as the September 1 deadline nears."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":135,"text":"Joris Bekkers, a football analytics and tech strategy consultant at UnravelSports, said the rise in hiring was probably down to a combination of factors, including expanding budgets, the buzz around AI, younger and more innovative decision makers and clubs recognising that the workload has become too great for a one-person data department."}],[{"start":155,"text":"“Teams no longer have just a single data scientist, but they might have multiple and they might have data engineers and a whole separate data department,” he added."}],[{"start":164,"text":"The growth in football recruitment is at odds with the wider UK labour market, with Indeed’s mid-year report showing an 11 per cent decline in postings since the start of the year, leaving figures down a third on the pre-pandemic baseline."}],[{"start":182.04,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787986764_7742.mp3"}