Applied Data Scientist. Excellent salary plus benefits. Midlands / Hybrid / Remote. Negotiable salary depending on experience. We’re now looking for a talented Applied Data Scientist to support the next phase of AI-enabled digital product suite. This is an opportunity to design, develop and deliver intelligent, data-driven services that are simpler, clearer and faster and that genuinely meet user needs at national scale. You’ll play a key role in exploring complex datasets, building production-ready machine learning and generative AI solutions, and working closely with multidisciplinary teams to translate real user problems into impactful AI capabilities. Key responsibilities include: * Exploring, analysing and interpreting large, complex and diverse datasets to uncover insights and opportunities for AI-driven improvement. * Designing, building, evaluating and optimising machine learning, deep learning and generative AI models for real-world service applications. * Collaborating with engineers, product managers, designers and policy stakeholders to translate user needs into scalable AI solutions. * Contributing to AI-enabled capabilities such as intelligent automation, natural language understanding, prediction and decision support. * Ensuring responsible, ethical and secure use of AI and data aligned with governance, privacy and public sector standards. * Communicating technical findings, model behaviour and limitations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. * Supporting experimentation, evaluation and continuous improvement of AI systems in production environments. * Staying current with emerging AI research, tooling, model capabilities and best practice. Experience & Skills * Strong proficiency in Python for data science, machine learning and AI development. * Experience developing and deploying machine learning or deep learning models. * Knowledge of natural language processing, transformers or generative AI techniques. * Solid grounding in statistics, probability and experimental design. * Experience working with large datasets using SQL or cloud data platforms. * Ability to explain complex AI concepts to diverse technical and non-technical stakeholders. * Experience collaborating within multidisciplinary digital or product teams. * Clear commitment to ethical, transparent and responsible AI development. * Comfort working in fast-moving, evolving and sometimes ambiguous environments. Desirable (but not essential): * Experience working with large language models via APIs or open-source frameworks. * Fine-tuning or evaluating generative AI systems. * Knowledge of MLOps, monitoring and lifecycle management. * Experience with cloud AI/ML services and scalable data platforms. * Exposure to reinforcement learning, graph machine learning or advanced deep learning techniques. * Data visualisation or decision-intelligence tooling experience. * Experience within government, public sector or other regulated environments. * Mentoring colleagues or supporting wider AI capability development. This is a unique opportunity to shape how AI is applied across the organisation and help shape the business’ AI journey