Head of Quant & Data Science in London

This job is with Fitch Group, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Fitch Solutions is currently seeking a Head of Quant and Data Science based out of our London office. Fitch Solutions is a leading provider of insights, data and analytics. It informs investment strategies, strengthens risk management capabilities and helps identify strategic opportunities. Its analysts, lawyers, journalists and economists offer in-depth views on credit markets/risk and individual credits, ESG, developed and emerging markets, and industry sectors.

Fitch Solutions operates four content and data businesses serving the world's largest enterprise clients across credit, fixed income and macroeconomic markets. The Head of Data Science and Quantitative Research is accountable for building and leading the quantitative capability that turns that content estate into analytic products: the models, the feature and data infrastructure that feed them, and the knowledge graph that connects entities, instruments and documents across every business unit. This is a hybrid leadership role. The successful candidate will lead a small senior team of data scientists and quantitative developers while remaining hands on in model design, code review and client facing technical work. Reporting directly to the Chief Product Officer, the role sits at the centre of product strategy and is expected to shape what Fitch Solutions builds, not only how it is built. The role has global reach. Models and infrastructure built by this team will underpin analytic, data and content products delivered to enterprise clients through API, MCP, feed and web channels.

How You’ll Make an Impact:

• Quantitative Strategy and Model Development: Set the quantitative agenda for Fitch Solutions: define which models, scores and analytics create commercial differentiation, and sequence their delivery. Design, build and validate models across the fixed income estate, including credit risk and relative value analytics, spread and pricing models, private credit and business development company analytics, loan and bond level metrics, and portfolio level aggregation. Own model methodology documentation, validation standards and performance monitoring, with an audit trail suitable for review by clients and internal risk functions. Work with Head of Analytics to establish standards for reproducibility, back testing and version control so that model outputs published to clients can be explained and defended.
• Data and Feature Infrastructure: Define and build the data infrastructure that supports quantitative work at scale: feature stores, time series stores, reference data alignment and the pipelines that keep them current. Partner with the Head of Data Products and the Chief Data Office to ensure the unified taxonomy, metadata schema and entity model are fit for quantitative consumption. Set the reference architecture for how analytic outputs are published back into products, ensuring consistency of structure, identifier and vintage regardless of originating business unit. Hold the organisation accountable for the data quality that models depend on, with measurable inputs to the enterprise data quality framework.
• Knowledge Graph Infrastructure: Own the design and delivery of the Fitch Solutions knowledge graph: the entity, instrument, issuer, fund and document relationships that connect content across business units. Define the graph schema, ontology extensions and entity resolution logic that allow issuers, obligors, facilities and instruments to be linked reliably across internal and third party sources. Build the retrieval layer that allows semantic search, retrieval augmented generation and agentic workflows to operate over the graph with accurate grounding and attribution. Work with the Head of AI Products to ensure graph and vector infrastructure develop as a single coherent capability rather than parallel efforts.
• Product and Commercial Delivery: Partner with Product Heads across the four business units to convert client problems into quantitative product features with defined success metrics. Engage directly with enterprise clients, including asset managers, banks, insurers, private credit managers and corporates, on methodology, model performance and data integration. Support commercial teams in technical evaluations, proofs of concept and renewal conversations where quantitative credibility is decisive. Assess build against buy for third party analytics and vendor models, and make clear recommendations to the Chief Product Officer.
• Team Leadership: Build and lead a team of three to five data scientists and quantitative developers, with scope to grow as the portfolio expands. Set hiring standards, technical review practice and career development paths for quantitative staff in an organisation where the function is being established rather than inherited. Establish working practices that allow a small team to serve four business units without becoming a bottleneck: shared libraries, documented interfaces and clear prioritisation. Represent quantitative work to senior leadership and the wider Fitch Group technology community, translating technical trade offs into commercial language.

You May be a Good Fit if:

• Substantial experience leading data science or quantitative research teams in financial markets, financial data, asset management, banking or a comparable analytics business.
• Deep domain knowledge of fixed income products.
• Meaningful depth in private credit, business development companies, leveraged loans and corporate bonds is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrable record of building production models consumed by external clients, not only internal research or one off analysis.
• Hands on technical strength in Python and SQL, with working command of the modern data stack and of graph query languages such as SPARQL, Cypher or equivalent & strong knowledge of data surface infrastructures such as Snowflake/Databricks etc.
• Practical experience designing knowledge graph, ontology or linked data infrastructure and the entity resolution logic that underpins it.
• Understanding of fixed income identifier standards and their interoperability, including ISIN, CUSIP, SEDOL, LEI and vendor specific schemes, and experience working with major data providers such as Bloomberg, LSEG, FactSet or ICE Data Services.
• Experience operating across organisational boundaries and influencing without direct authority across product, technology, data and research functions.
• Ability to translate quantitative work into commercial outcomes that are legible to non technical stakeholders, including at executive and client level.
• Comfort in a dynamic environment where priorities move, structures are still forming and progress depends on initiative rather than process.

What Would Make You Stand Out:

• Experience with retrieval augmented generation and agentic architectures, and clear judgement on the data requirements they impose.
• Exposure to private credit data challenges specifically: sparse disclosure, inconsistent reporting, valuation opacity and manager level idiosyncrasy.
• Track record commercialising analytics, including pricing, packaging and client onboarding for quantitative products.
• Familiarity with credit research workflows and how portfolio managers, analysts and risk teams consume analytic output.
• Experience with cloud native machine learning platforms and with production monitoring of model performance and drift.

Why Choose Fitch:

• Hybrid Work Environment: 3 days a week in office required based on your line of business and location.
• A Culture of Learning & Mobility: Dedicated trainings, leadership development and mentorship programs designed to ensure that your time at Fitch will be a continuous learning opportunity.
• Investing in Your Future: Retirement planning and tuition reimbursement programs that empower you to achieve your short and long-term goals.
• Promoting Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive healthcare offerings that enable physical, mental, financial, social, and occupational wellbeing.
• Supportive Parenting Policies: Family-friendly policies, including a generous global parental leave plan, designed to help you balance career and family life effectively.
• Inclusive Work Environment: A collaborative workplace where all voices are valued, with Employee Resource Groups that unite and empower our colleagues around the globe.
• Dedication to Giving Back: Paid volunteer days, matched funding for donations and ample opportunities to volunteer in your community.

At Fitch, AI is embedded in how we work every day—supporting smarter decision-making, streamlining workflows, and enabling new ways to create value for our business and clients. Intelligent solutions are increasingly part of our day-to-day operations, helping teams work more efficiently and think differently as we continue to evolve. We’re looking for colleagues who are comfortable operating in an AI-enabled environment—or who are curious, adaptable, and eager to build their AI literacy over time. We value professionals who embrace technology as part of continuous learning and who are committed to using it thoughtfully to enhance how work gets done. Fitch is committed to providing global securities markets with objective, timely, independent and forward-looking credit opinions. To protect Fitch’s credibility and reputation, our employees must take every precaution to avoid conflicts of interest or any appearance of a conflict of interest. Should you be successful in the recruitment process at Fitch Ratings you will be asked to declare any securities holdings and other potential conflicts prior to commencing employment. If you, or your immediate family, have any holdings that may conflict with your work responsibilities, you may be asked to divest yourself of them before beginning work.

Fitch is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, and other statuses protected by law.