Lead Data Scientist

Job summary

Please note this role requires you to pass Security Check clearance. For further information, please see 'Selection process details'.

Are you looking for a uniquely inspiring and fulfilling career opportunity where your work will be making a genuine difference to society?
Are you someone who is skilled in harnessing the power of data and using advanced analytics to improve outcomes?
Would you love the opportunity to use data and technology at scale and in innovative ways to solve problems?

Sounds like you? We'd love to hear from you!

DWP Digital offers uniquely inspiring and fulfilling career opportunities for people passionate about making a genuine difference to society.

As the Lead Data Scientist for Working Age Services, you will be responsible for steering a high performing analytical team that supports the Programme to improve outcomes for claimants and agents by using data science to support the design, delivery and evaluation of Working Age digital Services. In addition, together with the Working Age Services Data Lead and Delivery Lead, you will be working closely with the cross-disciplinary development teams in the Working Age Services to understand their data needs, ensuring these are met through close engagement with the platform team within Data and Analytics.

Job description

As a Lead Data Scientist, you will:

• Lead and develop a data science & analysis team that uses the latest tools and techniques to provide the everyday analytics, insights and evidence needed to help the development of the Working Age Services.
• Take responsibility for the quality of analytics processes, evaluation methods, reporting frameworks and machine learning capabilities that deliver critical business insights and improve outcomes for citizens and DWP staff.
• Advocate for and enact the DWP Data Strategy, DWP AI strategy and Business strategy, ensuring team data initiatives receive adequate support & guidance from the central functions.
• Nurture strong relationships with senior stakeholders and digital teams to influence the measurement frameworks, data quality and performance culture in the Working Age Services.
• Provide the appropriate safeguards to ensure all work adheres to key privacy, security and data protection regulations and set procedures for ethical considerations such as unintended biases.
• Play a key role in an inclusive and diverse community, defining recruitment strategies and career progression as well as contributing to Digital Practices in DWP overall.

Please note: As part of the role, you may be required to travel to the other digital hubs. The frequency of this will be discussed further should you be successful.

Person specification

See selection process for further details.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Aisha.Gultasab@dwp.gov.uk.

Qualifications

A degree or higher in STEM (Science, Technology, engineering, or mathematics) is essential for this role. Evidence of your qualification will be requested in advance of interview.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Data Science (Innovation)
• Applied maths, statistics and scientific practices

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Data Science (Innovation)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £75,026, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,735 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:

• Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
• Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
• Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
• Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
• Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
• Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
• An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.

Hybrid Working

This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work.

If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.

If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.

Salary Information

Pay for this role is from £75,026 to £92,522

The maximum salary for the grade is £80,267, however a Digital Allowance of up to £12,255 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed.

Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview.

Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current substantive salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase applied to their current substantive salary, whichever is greater.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Experience and Technical skills.

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of four parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed. As a guide, we ask candidates to keep their employment history to roughly two pages if they can.

3. Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria below:

• Proven experience of leading a high performing multi-disciplinary team that delivers analytics and insights at pace which best supports project, programme or business outcomes.
• Working knowledge and understanding of a wide range of data science techniques and when they are appropriate to use; keeping up to date with the latest industry trends and how to apply them to practical situations.
• Proven ability to build trusted peer and senior stakeholder relationships including with digital, operations and policy colleagues in order to understand their needs and how best to add value.
• Demonstrable evidence of setting the standards and best practices for teams including the appropriate safeguards to ensure all work adheres to key privacy, security and data protection principles as well as ethical considerations such as unintended biases.
• Evidence of playing a key role in leadership in the community, defining recruitment strategies and career progression as well as contributing to Digital Practices.
• Proven ability to create a diverse and inclusive environment where people feel safe to challenge and know their voice will be heard. Give people space to take initiative and to develop themselves.

4. Technical statement (up to 250 words). The following statement is aligned to the required technical skill of: Data Science (Innovation). This statement should be used to provide example(s) of how you meet the criterion below:

• Please describe a significant example where you led data science innovation to deliver measurable impact.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Ensure that all examples provided in your statements are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statements, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide.

The sift panel will use the information in your employment history, personal statement, and technical statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge.

An initial sift will be conducted using the technical statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift.

If you do progress to a full sift, you will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your employment history and Personal Statement.

For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.

Important Information

• You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
• Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
• If your employment history, personal statement or technical statement contain any personal details your application will be withdrawn.

Stage 2: Interview

If you’re successful at the sift stage, you’ll be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. During the interview, you’ll be assessed against the experience criteria listed under both the essential criteria and technical skill.

You will be asked to do a 5 minute presentation on a specific topic, visual aids are permitted. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

You will also be asked at interview to complete a 10 minute exercise to assess the technical skill: Applied maths, statistics and scientific practices. Further details will be given at interview.

Interviews will take place from early July 2026. Interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

Find out more about Working for DWP

If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.

A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.

All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.

For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed.

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.

Security Clearance Requirement

You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check.

You must have resided continuously in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years, 2 of which must have been the immediately preceding years from the point of applying for this job.

Reasonable Adjustment

At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.

We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Aisha Gultasab
• Email : Aisha.Gultasab@dwp.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : digitalrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.

Attachments

Success-Profiles-Candidate-Overview Opens in new window (pdf, 635kB)DWP Terms and Conditions January 2024 Opens in new window (docx, 17kB)