Senior Data Scientist - Home Insurance

Location: Bexhill/Leicester/London - with a willingness to travel to Bexhill and Leicester on occasion.

Welcome to Hastings Direct. We’re a digital insurance provider with a clear strategy to become the best and biggest player in the UK market. As a company, we’ve made huge investments in our technology, pricing, data and analytics capabilities over the past few years, alongside nurturing our 4Cs culture and significant investment in our people.

Role overview: We have a dedicated Pricing and Underwriting team to deliver the ambitious strategy we have for our Home Insurance product. This effort has the full support of the business, benefits from a state‑of‑the‑art tech stack and inputs from the entire Actuarial and Data Science (AnDS) community at Hastings, making it an extremely exciting time to join the team. To build upon the foundations and early successes of the recently formed Home team we are looking for an experienced Technical Pricing Manager / Senior Data Scientist with strong programming skills and a passion for data. This candidate will fuel our ongoing development of the technical models that are critical to the next stage of our commercial agenda.

As a Technical Pricing Manager / Senior Data Scientist in the Home Underwriting team, you will be reporting to the Home AnDS lead, working closely with the Data, Analytical and ML Engineering teams. You will play a pivotal role in the development and deployment of machine learning models and data science solutions to extract the crucial predictive insight that underpins all our technical pricing and helps maintain our competitive edge. You will provide strategic guidance and tooling to benefit the wider Pricing, Data and Analytics community and support data‑driven innovation.

Accountabilities:

• Developing, analysing, and overseeing the implementation of advanced statistical and machine learning models into live pricing.
• Developing tools and solutions to support the management of our risk portfolio.
• Stretching the team’s capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and use of Cloud technologies.
• Working cross‑functionally with the wider Underwriting team to develop the Home data landscape.
• Engineering powerful new features to be deployed into our pricing algorithms.
• Advocating for data science and software development best practices.
• Engaging commercial stakeholders to gather detailed business requirements and coordinating project activities.

Essential skills/experience:

• Proven track record of delivering commercial value using supervised machine learning techniques.
• Advanced Python programmer, and experience with data manipulation and analysis libraries (e.g., NumPy, Pandas, scikit‑learn).
• Advanced knowledge of data science technologies including tooling and platforms.
• Proficient in SQL.
• Proficient with Git.
• Ability to drive projects from initiation to completion.
• Keen interest in emerging Machine Learning techniques.

Desirable:

• Experience with Cloud deployments (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP).

Interview Process:

• Recruiter screening call
• 1st Round – Intro call with Hiring manager
• 2nd Round – Case study round followed by call with Hiring leader

Benefits:

• Join us and you’ll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company and community.
• Flexible working: We champion a flexible hybrid working approach – please speak to your recruiter to discuss in more detail.
• Competitive bonus scheme: All colleagues are eligible for our annual 4Cs performance bonus.
• Physical wellbeing: Hastings pays for you to receive private medical insurance (PMI).
• Financial wellbeing: In addition to a competitive salary and £5k car allowance, we provide 4× your salary life assurance cover, income protection at no extra cost, matched pension contributions up to 10%, and an award‑winning package that includes discounts, cashback, free independent mortgage advice and free access to financial wellbeing support.
• Mental wellbeing programme: We have the Thrive mental health app, a colleague assistance programme available 24/7, in‑house mental health first aiders, support groups and a dedicated team to make sure we are covering your needs.
• Extra perks: 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with the option to buy or sell one of your weeks, access to our health care cashback plans, dental plans, discounted health assessments, cycle‑to‑work and tech schemes, discounted and free onsite facilities, social events throughout the year and much more.

Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status. We are a Disability Confident employer and are committed to ensuring our recruitment processes are fully inclusive.