Configuration Catalogue Analyst

A Configuration Catalogue Analyst maintains the structured lists of products, services, parts or system components that an organisation sells, buys or runs - making sure each item is recorded once, correctly, with the right codes, attributes, prices and relationships to other items. The work usually sits in an IT service management, product/engineering or procurement function, and the "customers" are internal: sales teams quoting to clients, engineers building configurations, service desks logging tickets, and finance teams who need the data to be consistent. In practice it is a data-quality and governance job sitting between business users and the systems that hold the catalogue.

Starting salary: £24k–£32k
Live graduate jobs: Search all jobs
Main way in: Direct application to a junior analyst or data administrator…
They usually ask for: A degree is usually asked for but the subject rarely matters…

Approximate graduate salary

Typically somewhere around £24,000–£32,000 to start, though this varies widely by sector, employer size and location - London and consultancy roles sit at the higher end, while regional public sector and smaller firms often start lower. Treat this as a rough guide only and check individual adverts.

What you'd actually do

Adding, amending and retiring catalogue items - for example a new service offering, hardware part or software licence - in a system such as a service management tool, ERP (enterprise resource planning software that runs finance, stock and ordering) or product configurator
Checking requests from sales, engineering or procurement for missing or inconsistent information before the item is published, and going back to the requester for clarification
Running reports to find duplicates, items with blank mandatory fields, obsolete entries or pricing that no longer matches the agreed source, then correcting them
Mapping relationships between items - which components are compatible, which service depends on which underlying system, what the parent/child structure is - so that configurations built from the catalogue actually work

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Handling queries and small change requests, often through a ticket queue with service-level targets, and chasing approvals from the owners who sign off a change
Writing and updating the rules: naming conventions, attribute definitions, which team owns which part of the catalogue, and the steps a change must go through
Taking part in data cleanses or migrations when a system is upgraded or two catalogues are merged, which usually means a lot of spreadsheet comparison and spot-checking
Joining regular meetings with product managers, service owners or category buyers to understand what is changing commercially and what that means for the data

How graduates get in

Direct application to a junior analyst or data administrator post - this is the most common route, and these roles are often advertised at graduate level without being part of a formal scheme
Graduate schemes in IT services, technology consultancies, telecoms and large manufacturers sometimes include a rotation through service management, master data or product data teams; the job title on the scheme is rarely this specific
Internal moves are very common - people start on a service desk, in sales support, in a procurement admin role or in order management and move across once they know the products and the systems
Placement years or summer internships in IT operations, supply chain or product management, which give you exposure to the catalogue systems before you graduate

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Apprenticeship and school-leaver routes exist in data and IT support, so you may be working alongside colleagues who came in without a degree
Agency or fixed-term contract work on a specific data migration or catalogue clean-up project, which often converts into a permanent role

What employers ask for

A degree is usually asked for but the subject rarely matters much; business, IT, information management, engineering, supply chain and science subjects are all common, and employers are generally more interested in whether you are comfortable with structured data
Evidence that you can work with data accurately - a dissertation involving datasets, a placement with reporting work, or spreadsheet-heavy part-time work all count
Solid Excel is near-universally expected; SQL (a language for querying databases) is often listed as desirable rather than essential at entry level
Degree classification requirements vary a lot - some large employers filter at 2:1, many smaller ones and contract roles do not filter on grades at all

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No mandatory professional qualification. ITIL Foundation (a widely used certification in IT service management) is commonly asked for or funded after you join if the role sits in IT; procurement-focused roles may point you towards CIPS instead
Some adverts expect familiarity with a specific platform - a service management tool, an ERP, a product lifecycle management system or a product information management system - but employers often accept transferable experience of any similar system

Skills that matter

Attention to detail under repetition

A single mistyped part code or wrong attribute can block an order, mis-price a quote or break an automated configuration downstream, and nobody notices until it causes a problem.

Spreadsheet and data manipulation (lookups, pivots, deduplication)

Most reconciliation and clean-up work still happens by comparing extracts from two systems and finding where they disagree.

Understanding of data structure and taxonomy

You decide how items are categorised, named and related to each other, and a poor structure makes the catalogue unusable for everyone who searches it.

Questioning and clarifying requests

Requesters frequently send incomplete or ambiguous information, and the analyst is the person who has to pin down exactly what is being added before it goes live.

Process discipline and comfort with governance

Catalogue changes usually need approvals, audit trails and version control, and the job involves saying no or 'not yet' to people who want a shortcut.

Basic querying or reporting (SQL, or a reporting tool)

Spotting data-quality issues at scale is much faster when you can pull the data yourself rather than waiting for someone else to run a report.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Start as a junior/associate analyst doing supervised catalogue maintenance and ticket handling; most people are working more independently within roughly a year, though this depends on how complex the product set is
Move to a senior or lead analyst role, owning a product area or service domain, defining standards and reviewing others' changes
Branch into one of several adjacent paths: configuration management or CMDB ownership in IT service management, master data management, business analysis, or product/service catalogue management with more commercial input
Longer term, routes include data governance manager, service management lead, systems or ERP functional specialist, or consultancy work implementing catalogue and master data systems for clients - this is a common step because the skills transfer across organisations
Timelines vary widely. Progression is faster in consultancies and fast-growing tech firms, slower and more grade-based in the public sector or large established corporates, and in some organisations the next step requires moving employer rather than waiting for a vacancy

What people get wrong

“It is basically data entry that will be automated away.”

The typing part is a small share of the job. The value is in deciding how things should be classified, spotting when a request does not make sense, and resolving disagreements between teams who want the same item recorded differently - automation makes bad data spread faster, so it tends to increase the need for someone governing it.

“'Configuration' means you will be configuring software or systems.”

In most of these roles 'configuration' refers to the recorded makeup of a product or IT estate - which components exist and how they fit together - not hands-on technical setup. Some roles do include system admin work in the catalogue tool, but you should check the advert rather than assume.

“It is a back-office job with no contact with anyone.”

Much of the week is spent negotiating with sales, engineering, procurement and finance, who all have competing views on what should be in the catalogue and how fast it should get there. Being able to push back politely matters more than people expect.

“It is a dead end with nowhere to go.”

Knowing exactly how an organisation's products, services and systems are structured is unusually useful knowledge, and it is a well-worn stepping stone into business analysis, data governance, ERP and service management specialisms.

Where this varies

The title is used quite differently across sectors, so read the advert carefully. In IT services and telecoms it usually means maintaining a service catalogue and configuration management database (a record of IT assets and how they depend on each other), and ITIL language dominates. In manufacturing, engineering or automotive it tends to mean product configuration data - parts, variants, bills of materials - and sits close to engineering or supply chain. In retail, distribution or e-commerce it can mean product information management, closer to merchandising. In procurement it may mean maintaining a buying catalogue of approved suppliers and items. The day-to-day data work is similar in all of them, but the vocabulary, the systems and the colleagues differ, and experience is not always seen as directly transferable by recruiters even when it is.

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General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.