Senior Data Scientist

Job overview

You will provide specialist advice and guidance on the use of data and analytics to the HEU, informing how we deliver projects and achieve clients’ aims. You will work on various research projects as commissioned by our clients under a consultancy model, which will take up to 80% of your time (this may change as the work of the unit evolves).

If you do experience a delay in the shortlisting stage of the recruitment cycle, please bear with us while this process is completed, and contact the named contact if you have any questions.

High-cost area allowance will apply to this role where there is a service requirement to routinely work from the London base and/or to be available to work within the local operational area (a minimum of 40% of contracted hours).

Main duties of the job

Plan, organise, and lead data and analytics aspects of projects. Responsibilities include:

• Building predictive models for admissions/discharges to optimise resources and reduce bottlenecks in emergency departments.
• Analysing health disparities across populations, identifying factors like socio-economic status or access to care.
• Applying NLP to unstructured data (e.g., clinician notes, patient feedback) for insights into patient needs.
• Using machine learning to predict outcomes such as readmission rates or disease progression, supporting proactive care.
• Developing econometric models to evaluate healthcare policy effects on patient health, utilisation, and costs.
• Analysing complex datasets, identifying trends, and selecting methods for data cleaning, processing, and analysis.
• Addressing unique questions, developing innovative approaches to client needs.
• Following and contributing to best practices in data analysis.
• Managing software for statistical analysis, including procuring and implementing improvements.
• Developing and implementing policies for HEU and CSU teams.
• Quality-assuring team outputs.
• Acting independently as a subject-matter expert within guidelines.
• Supporting business development and contributing to data science proposals by scoping projects and estimating costs.

Working for our organisation

The HEU is an NHS consultancy of 17 team members across three teams: Health Economics, Service Delivery and Data and Analytics.

You will sit within the data and analytics team, led by the chief analyst and reporting to the lead data scientist/econometrician.

During projects you will work closely across the HEU team, with data scientists, analysts, project managers, and health economists.

You will engage with our clients, partners and stakeholders throughout projects, understanding their needs and communicating your work.

Our mission

Leading the generation of world-class evidence through economics and analytics, improving health and care

Our vision

The best possible health and care through evidence-based decision-making

Our values

Collaborative: we share our knowledge, invest in our community and value our diversity

The Health Economics Unit is a specialist team hosted by NHS ML. The HEU has been created to deliver impactful insights that power the future development of health and care delivery. Our experts support health system and industry leaders to make the best possible decisions and design the highest quality, most efficient and most innovative services to improve the health of communities across the country.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Key responsibilities

• Plan, organise and deliver the data and analytic aspects of projects, including in a project leadership role. Projects could include:
• Building predictive models to forecast patient admissions and discharges, helping optimise hospital resources and reduce bottlenecks in areas like emergency departments.
• Analysing disparities in health outcomes across different populations, identifying factors like socio-economic status, geography, or access to care that contribute to inequalities.
• Applying NLP techniques to unstructured text data, such as clinician notes or patient feedback, to extract key information and improve understanding of patient needs and outcomes.
• Using supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques to predict outcomes such as readmission rates, disease progression, or patient deterioration, aiding proactive care.
• Developing econometric models to evaluate the effects of healthcare policies or interventions on key outcomes, such as patient health, hospital utilisation, or treatment costs.
• Analyse complex datasets to identify trends and patterns, and applies statistical models to solve business problems; make decisions on appropriate methods for data cleaning, processing, and analysis.
• Work on novel issues and questions which may not have precedent about how they have been tackled before. This may include fully identifying the question being asked and identifying novel and new approaches to solve our client’s needs.
• Follow data analysis and econometrics best practices and contribute to the ongoing development and improvement of these.
• Manage systems and software used to deliver statistical analysis and other functions as required for projects. This includes identifying, procuring, implementing and improving software and systems which would improve the work of the unit.
• Propose and develop policies and procedures relating to data and analytics, which affect the HEU or other teams in the CSU. Implement changes once agreed with the relevant person or group.
• Appraise and quality assure the analytical outputs from the team.
• Act as a specialist in own area and achieve own objectives. Act independently within established guidelines, escalating and seeking advice as required.
• Undertake business development meetings, supported by colleagues. Lead on and contribute to proposal writing, with a focus on data science aspects of the work. This includes understanding the client aims and scope of project, identifying how we can achieve this, and calculating cost.

• Provide guidance and mentorship to junior team members, demonstrating best practices and assisting with technical challenges.
• Support the lead data scientist / econometrician to line manage other members of the team.
• Supervise the completion of tasks by others. This may include more junior members of staff, or more senior.
• Proactively provide training and share knowledge on areas of expertise to the wider unit.
• Deliver training to clients on own area of expertise.
• Work independently on data projects within established guidelines, with advice available when required. Provide advice to more junior members of the team.

• Communicate and present complex information and insights to non-technical stakeholders in a way which can be easily understood. This may be written or oral.
• Write high-quality reports which effectively communicate our findings in an engaging way, focussing on impact and achieving our clients’ goals.
• Be able to synthesise multiple sources to communicate on complex issues.
• Understand client needs and objectives, working with the client and team to find solutions and achieve these goals. This may include negotiating with clients to achieve a positive outcome for all parties.
• Make judgements where there are conflicting views and make decisions where necessary, working with all parties to achieve buy-in.
• Contribute to other areas of the HEU to support our wider development as a unit and as a team, in a leadership role.
• Proactively work with the senior communications manager to help promote our work, contributing to the communications plan of the HEU and sharing our work so that we contribute to the development of analytics in the NHS.
• Present at conferences to large groups to promote our work and develop the analytical capacity of the wider NHS.

• Lead on small to medium sized projects and work with others to deliver projects to time, scope, budget and quality.
• Plan and organise complex data analysis tasks, ensuring that project timelines are met; adjust activities based on evolving data requirements.
• Manage project budgets, including the cost of own time and others spent on a project. Where potential for budget deviation is identified, flag the issue as early as possible and identify/implement remedial actions to ensure project is delivered to budget.
• Horizon-scan and identify potential issues before they occur, and resolve issues where they do occur.
• Follow all business processes of the HEU.

Person specification

Experience

• Masters degree in a related STEM subject or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level in a similar setting
• Varied experience of extracting data, manipulating, understanding, transforming, wrangling, cleaning, and storing health data, at a managerial level.
• Ability to write well-designed code (e.g. SQL or Python) which follows good coding standards.
• Possess foundational knowledge in data science, statistical analysis, and machine learning techniques.
• Varied experience working in data and analytics functions in the NHS, at a managerial level.