The Tesco Data Science team are offering 12-week paid internships for PhD students within the team. The start date for each internship is flexible but must be between June and August 2026.
At Tesco, our Data Science team focus on modelling complex business problems and deploying data products at scale. Our work spans across multiple areas including physical stores, online, supply chain, marketing and Clubcard. This requires our Data Scientists to have an advanced understanding of statistics and algorithms. As an intern, you will join the team and get hands on experience of what it's like to be a Data Scientist at Tesco. You'll work with the team on helping us solve an exciting real-life problem. In addition to the technical mentorship and training provided by the team we will also provide a personal mentor to help you get the most out of the internship.
The position will be based in either our London (Farringdon) office or our Welwyn Garden City campus.
We're all about the little helps. That's why we make sure our Tesco colleague benefits package takes care of you - both in and out of work. Annual bonus scheme of up to 10% of base salary
Holiday starting at 25 days plus a personal day (plus Bank holidays)
26 weeks maternity and adoption leave (after 1 years' service) at full pay, followed by 13 weeks of Statutory Maternity Pay or Statutory Adoption Pay, we also offer 6 weeks fully paid paternity leave
Free 24/7 virtual GP service, Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for you and your family, free access to a range of experts to support your mental wellbeing
As a PhD Intern you will work within the Data Science team, to understand difficult business problems and prototype solutions. A core component of the role is to apply, modify, and design algorithms and mathematical models to solve business problems on top of big data architectures (Hadoop, Spark). Our interns will need to be able to validate, document and present the modelling process and performance, as well as communicate complex solutions in a clear, understandable way to non-experts.
We are looking for ambitious PhD students (in their final or penultimate year) or Postdoctoral Researchers with a strong numerical background and a strong desire to pursue a career in data science.
An ideal candidate will have a scientific mentality with the ability to ask the right questions, as well as answer them. Experience in one or more of the following fields would be ideal:
• Machine Learning/Deep Learning
• Computer Vision
• Graph Neural Networks
• Operations Research
• Finally, good programming skills are essential (either Python or Java is preferred) and ideally some familiarity with SWE best practices (such as version control and unit testing).
Our vision at Tesco is to become every customer's favourite way to shop, whether they are at home or out on the move. Our core purpose is 'Serving our customers, communities and planet a little better every day'. It means acting as a responsible and sustainable business for all stakeholders, for the communities we are part of and for the planet.
At Tesco, we not only celebrate diversity, but recognise the value and opportunity it brings. We're proud to have been accredited Disability Confident Leader and we're committed to providing a fully inclusive and accessible recruitment process. We're a big business and we can offer a range of diverse full-time & part-time working patterns across our many business areas, which means that we can find something that works for you. We work in a more blended pattern - combining office and remote working.