Scientist - Earth Observation Data Assimilation

We are looking for an exceptional Scientist - Earth Observation Data Assimilation to help us make a difference to our planet. The job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work a minimum of 30 hours per week and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a job share.

World changing work: From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.

Your world of expertise: The Met Office has embarked on an exciting programme to redesign its operational forecasting capability for future high-performance computing (HPC) platforms. The current Met Office Data Assimilation (DA) system is not expected to be efficient across the range of possible alternative HPC solutions likely to be available on the 2025 timescale. The new software is being developed within the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) framework from the Joint Centre for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA).

The Met Office provides an opportunity for talented scientists to apply their skills to real-world problems, with impacts upon services that reach all our lives. Within the organisation, you will work in the team working on the Assimilation of Earth observations, part of the Satellite and Surface Assimilation (SSA) section of Weather Science. Data assimilation is the process of combining observational data with output from a numerical model to produce a statistically optimal estimate of the initial conditions for weather prediction.

As part of our approach to growing expertise in DA and JEDI, the successful applicants will also have exciting secondment opportunities to spend time working in Boulder, Colorado, at the JCSDA.

We are seeking talented and creative individuals to join our surface-based and upper-air observation team to contribute to the research and development on the assimilation of a wide range of weather observations (e.g. surface automated weather stations, upper-air instruments like radiosondes, and surface-based remotely sensed data such as weather radar) for initialising operational weather forecast models on the next generation of supercomputers. The successful applicants will become members of our research and development team and will apply scientific and technical knowledge to contribute to the success of the Met Office.

Essential Qualifications, Skills & Experience:

• Hold a degree in a physical/mathematical/environmental science (2:1 or above) or demonstration of equivalent with significant postgraduate experience (e.g. a PhD) in a relevant scientific area.
• Ability to deliver quality science in an area relevant for the skills needed to deliver the scientific development of observations processing or data assimilation.
• Experience or aptitude to write scientific software. Ability to write, modify and run complex scientific software codes, ideally in Python or C++.
• Demonstrated ability to be a strong team player with an ability to support and interact with scientific and technical colleagues.
• Good communication skills (written, oral, presentation and listening).
• Evidence of development of observations' processing or data assimilation systems.
• Experience with working with a large, complex code base.

How to apply: If you share our values, we would love to hear from you! Click apply to begin your application. Please complete your career history and provide evidence against each of the essential criteria in the supporting statement questionnaire. We recommend candidates use the CARL method (Context, Action, Result and Learning) for presenting evidence of experience and skills.

Closing date 29/01/2026 at 23:59 with first stage interviews commencing from 12/02/2026. You will hear from us once the closing date has passed.

Using AI in your application: We welcome applications that use AI tools for support in drafting or refining, as long as they accurately reflect your own skills and experience. All hiring decisions at the Met Office are made by people, not AI.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK. We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible, 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application. You will need to achieve full security clearance within your first 6 months with us.