Data Tangle Interview 4:
Sophie Crouchman

Alex Leigh

11 November 2025

4 min read

“How many staff do we have shouln't d be a hard question to answer, but it is!" 

Introduction

This is interview #4 of 12 for our Data Tangle research project.

Interviewee: Sophie Crouchman

Institution: University Human Resources (UHR)

Role: Strategic Projects and Research Manager

Talking people data with Sophie Crouchman 

We sat down with Sophie Crouchman from Universities Human Resources (UHR) to home in on HR data in higher education. This is often a “forgotten” domain when much of the data focus is on Student and Finance. Sophie is keen to change this.

Sophie’s background is in planning, where she wrangled staff data for outputs such as the HESA staff return, Athena Swan submissions, and REF equality impact assessments. Now at UHR she’s less hands-on with data herself, but she spends a lot of time helping members make sense of their own people data. That means developing communities, sharing good practice, and building confidence in HR teams to use data better. 

From crisis to change 

When Sophie joined UHR in 2021, she noticed HR teams could often be quite narrow in how they used data. Again, that data was focused on compliance returns rather than wider insights. This changed with the recruitment crisis and the so-called “great resignation” as universities were forced to think differently about their staff establishment.

As part of this, those universities were being asked new questions: how long does it take to recruit? Where are the sticking points? Why can’t we get better candidates? Some institutions had the answers ready; others struggled to even say how many staff they had (to be fair this has the whiff of the perennially tricky “how many students are there” we come across most weeks)

These questions – and lack of good answers – drove some much needed change. HR teams started to look at their data differently, not just for external returns but to understand their workforce and respond to big challenges like headcount reductions. Sophie describes a “continuum of capability” in the response; some universities with slick dashboards and joined-up data, while others were still piecing things together reactively. 

The HESA staff return vs. internal reporting 

One area that feels more established is the HESA staff return. It happens every year, everyone knows it’s coming, so there are set processes. But Sophie points out that “established” doesn’t always mean “mature.”

Efficiency varies, and often teams don’t learn from each other. She gave the example of borrowing ideas from colleagues in student data to improve staff return processes. Even simple things like shared templates and documentation can make a huge difference. 

Internal reporting, on the other hand, continues to develop. Many HR data people can feel stuck in reactive mode, responding to one-off requests rather than providing accessible, regularly updated insights – which is what they really want to do. 

Sharing practice and building confidence 

Compared to student data, Sophie feels HR hasn’t had as many spaces to share practice. That’s something she’s been working on at UHR by setting up data networks, running webinars, and more recently hosting quarterly virtual meetings. 

She also highlighted the importance of building confidence among HR colleagues who aren’t data specialists. UHR’s “data confidence” programme is aimed at business partners and managers who need to use data but don’t always know what to ask for. It’s not about turning them into analysts, rather it’s about helping them feel comfortable enough to have proper conversations with their data colleagues, and to challenge or explain data in meetings. 

We ran some Data Strategy workshops for HR leadership teams in 2023 and 2024 and we were encouraged by the interest and enthusiasm attendees showed to ‘move the data conversation on’.

Resources and roles 

We asked if HR teams have dedicated data staff? Sophie says most do but that’s often because someone has to handle the HESA staff return. Even then the scale varies massively. For example, a small specialist institution, three HR staff might “do everything.” At a big, Russell Group university, there could be 100+HR staff in the whole institution with analysts spread across the professional services function and into each faculty. 

The worry is that in tough times, HR analysts are seen as expendable. If teams haven’t already proved their value with visible dashboards or insights, leaders may not see the benefit of keeping them. That’s a risk just as demand for people analytics is growing. 

Systems or skills? 

When asked what would help most with data, many HR directors say “a new system.” Sophie thinks that’s a red herring. Systems matter, but the bigger issues are resources and skills. Data people often face the same requests over and over or get asked for reports without clear questions behind them. Better conversations, clearer priorities, and more confidence across HR teams would make a bigger difference than swapping out systems. 

Next time

We have a cracker of an interview with a Head of Data Governance coming up. Tenatively entitled "Tales from the data trenches"!