Data Scientist (Contract) – AI/NLP for Cleared Defence Deployment Contract | Inside IR35 | £600–£700/day | Hybrid / Secure Site | SC/DV Cleared | UK Nationals Only Contract Length: Initial 3-month engagement (rolling), forming part of a 6–9 month delivery track We've partnered with a fast-paced UK-based AI software company delivering a major MOD-backed programme. They're developing a mission-critical AI capability for deployment in a secure environment, and they're looking for data scientists who excel in tackling complex challenges. This is high-impact work, constrained by real-world operational, compute, and security boundaries and delivered as part of a small, elite, cross-functional team. What You’ll Be Doing: * Designing and implementing NLP pipelines for transcription, topic extraction, and summarisation * Developing modular LLM workflows (e.g., RAG, graph-based reasoning) optimised for low-resource deployments * Integrating structured and unstructured data: transcripts, policy documents, supply chain models * Collaborating with platform engineers to containerise models for edge inference * Defining evaluation frameworks using both metrics and human-in-the-loop feedback * Supporting secure deployment across classification levels and offline environments * Participating in on-site trials, tuning performance and refining capability under pressure * Ensuring alignment of AI output with operational decision-making requirements What You’ll Bring: * Hands-on experience building and deploying NLP/LLM solutions, including summarisation, entity extraction, and topic modelling * Strong Python skills with libraries such as HuggingFace Transformers, spaCy, PyTorch/TensorFlow, or RAG frameworks * Experience with knowledge graphs, GNNs, or graph-enabled retrieval * Proven ability to optimise ML systems for air-gapped, low-compute, or edge environments * Understanding of evaluation methods using SME and human review cycles * (Bonus) Prior work in Defence, aerospace, or similarly secure/regulated domains Why This Project? You’ll be shaping how NLP and LLMs are deployed into critical operational settings, where the constraints are real but so is the impact. It’s an opportunity to build novel, mission-relevant ML capability that won’t just sit on a shelf. Interested? If you’re cleared, available within 2–3 weeks, and excited to bring AI to life in Defence - we want to hear from you