Senior Data Scientist in Chelmsford

Fixed Term / Secondment opportunity, 12 months

Full Time, 37 hours per week

£47,615 to £56,017 per annum

Location: Chelmsford

Working Style: Anywhere worker

Closing date: Sun 28th June 2026

Job purpose

ECC’s Data, Analytics and Performance team transforms complex data into clear, actionable insights — providing robust analysis and performance intelligence to inform evidence‑led decisions, improve services, and deliver better outcomes for residents. The team is a centre of excellence for Data Engineers, Analysts and Data Scientists who work together to instil best practice data principles across the county, recognising that data and people are our two strongest assets.

This role sits within the Data Science and AI branch of the team, working closely with other data professionals across the wider function. You will collaborate with colleagues from across DDaT disciplines and engage directly with services, ensuring solutions are aligned to real‑world needs. The team also plays a facilitative role in bringing together data professionals from across the local public sector network, providing opportunities to collaborate with partners across Essex and the wider system.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will lead the development of advanced analytical solutions that support Essex County Council’s ambition to harness data science and artificial intelligence to improve public services and enable evidence‑led decision‑making. You’ll apply techniques such as predictive modelling, machine learning, and statistical analysis to generate forward‑looking insights that enhance operational delivery, support strategic decision‑making, and drive transformation.

Working hands‑on across the full data science lifecycle, you’ll identify suitable approaches to business problems, explore data, build models, prepare datasets, and create reproducible analytical workflows that inform strategic and operational priorities. Collaborating with colleagues across the organisation, you’ll embed data science into everyday practice and support innovation. You’ll ensure the ethical and responsible use of data, contribute to the development of tools, standards, and team capability, and guide others in applying advanced analytics. Drawing on your expertise, you’ll help grow technical and professional skills across the team and support the wider adoption of data science across the council.

Accountabilities

• Engage with services to identify opportunities where data science can influence strategy, improve delivery, and support organisational outcomes.
• Scope and deliver data science projects, selecting appropriate techniques and methods, creating project plans, and ensuring milestones are met.
• Conduct exploratory data analysis, including auditing, pattern detection, handling missing data, transformation and visualisation — sharing best practices across the team.
• Create replicable analytical pipelines and data products to co‑designed specifications, accessing data from source and building accessible outputs that are transparent and understandable.
• Develop, calibrate, and evaluate predictive models (e.g. forecasting, supervised and unsupervised learning), using a suite of post‑hoc evaluation tests, ensuring outputs are robust, explainable, and transparent and contextualise risks.
• Translate complex outputs into clear, actionable insights for non‑technical audiences.
• Collaborate with services to optimise data flows, improve data quality, and advise on data collection, processing, and analysis to maximise the value of our data assets.
• Pilot and evaluate responsible AI solutions, including internally trained and pre‑trained models (e.g. LLMs), to support ECC’s AI ambitions.
• Provide quality assurance on technical aspects of data science work, ensuring appropriate application and ethical use of data.
• Manage a catalogue of data products and outputs, reviewing usage and impact, and identifying opportunities to improve accessibility and relevance and literacy.
• Share data products and insights in accessible formats to promote transparency and collaboration. Document and publish work clearly to support reuse, learning, and responsible data use.
• Stay current with emerging tools, techniques, and best practices and represent the organisation professionally by contributing to communities of practice and sharing knowledge.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Educated to degree level in a quantitative field (e.g. Data Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or Engineering) or equivalent by experience.
• Membership with the Government Data Science Community, Royal Statistical Society (RSS), or British Computer Society (BCS) is advantageous.
• 3–5+ years experience in data science, analytics, or a related technical field using applied techniques for organisational impact.
• Knowledge and hands‑on experience with predictive modelling, machine learning, and statistical analysis. Working across the full data science lifecycle.
• Knowledge of data processing/coding languages such as SQL, R, Python, and version control systems for collaborative working and creating robust replicable analytical outputs.
• Experience of working in multidisciplinary teams using influence and negotiation to achieve successful outcomes and experience of working in a customer focused environment supporting a range of managers.
• Experience in ethical data use and capability building is a plus.
• Experience of working in a complex and political environment.

Benefits

Once you’ve secured your role within Essex County Council you will receive many great employee benefits, including support for unpaid carers and flexible working arrangements to accommodate their needs.

Equal Opportunity & EEO

Essex County Council is proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We’re committed to interview all disabled applicants who choose to apply under our Job Interview Scheme if they meet the minimum requirements of the job. Please speak to our recruiters if you require any reasonable adjustments during the process. We’re also committed to interview all veterans and care leavers, who meet the minimum requirements of the role for which they are applying.

As part of employment with Essex County Council (ECC), if your role requires a DBS check you will be required to register with the DBS update service. The DBS update service ensures all registered DBS certificates are kept up to date and allows authorised parties to view the status of your certificate. This is an annual subscription, and you will be responsible for ensuring this is maintained.

Essex County Council is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and vulnerable adults, and expects all employees and volunteers to share this commitment.