Data Science Lead in London

West and North London Integrated Care Board (WNL ICB) are recruiting a Lead Data Scientist to build out our in-house data science capability at an exciting time in our development. Through our investment in One London, we hold linked, person-level data spanning primary care, hospitals, mental health, community and social care for our population, a rich asset to model from. We've recently migrated our analytics platform to Snowflake, so you'll be shaping a modern, cloud-native stack from an early stage.

As an experienced technical leader and researcher, you'll use advanced predictive and prescriptive methods (causal inference, stochastic simulation, Bayesian hierarchical modelling, machine learning and more) to tackle real strategic and operational questions, e.g., forecasting the financial and population health impact of a new service before it launches, building risk models to identify who could benefit from proactive care, simulating the impact of a business case before money is committed, and evaluating whether the care models we've introduced are actually working. You'll productionise these into tools used across the WNL health and care system, impacting real-world strategic, operational and clinical decision-making. You'll play a key role in ensuring these new data and technologies are used responsibly and ethically to ensure this innovation does not perpetuate existing health inequalities and must feel confident promoting these principles.

Main duties of the job

• Independently delivering end-to-end data science projects yielding actionable insights and tools in production that enable users to tackle real-world strategic and operational problems.
• Considering user needs, data quality and management, user experience and engagement, deployment, and making best use of statistical and machine learning methods.
• Rigorously applying appropriate advanced statistical and data science methodologies to generate robust and reliable insights communicated with appropriate levels of uncertainty.
• Maintaining knowledge of a broad range of advanced statistical methodologies to identify and apply the most appropriate technical solution to a given problem, alongside a modelling specialism in line with the seniority of the role.
• Advanced use of open-source analytical tools (including R or Python) to develop and deploy (Snowflake, Docker, Github Actions) models and applications, and to assess and monitor model outputs.
• Set technical standards, actively contribute to high-level architectural decisions and identify development opportunities for yourself and those around you and adopt innovative practices learned from the wider analytics community.
• Matrix management and coaching of senior data scientists to deliver advanced models and productionise tools.

About us

We are NHS West and North London. We are the main commissioning NHS organisation for planning and funding health services across our area. Our job is simple: to help people stay healthy and to make sure everyone can get good care when they need it.

Our strategy includes:

• Reducing inequalities
• Investing strategically to prevent ill health
• Better supporting people with the greatest needs, so everyone stays well
• Make care more local and easier to access
• Empowered local people that feel more confident about their health and wellbeing

Details

• Date posted: 11 September 2026
• Pay scheme: Agenda for change
• Band: Band 8b
• Salary: £66,582 to £77,368 a year
• Contract: Permanent
• Working pattern: Full-time
• Reference number: 807-ABDS-B8B-AA
• Job locations: Marylebone Road, London NW1 5JD, United Kingdom

Job responsibilities

• Follow a data ethics framework ensuring compliance with AI fairness and transparency standards and maintain a firm understanding of the governance landscape in healthcare.
• Apply understanding of NHS pathways, service interfaces, and operational pressures to ensure analysis reflects real-world context and supports evidence-based interventions.
• Working with stakeholders to understand the underlying business need and applying your knowledge and influencing skills to co-design appropriate project plans including problem articulation, project scoping and design, communication, deployment and evaluation.
• As a proactive member of data science communities, you'll collaborate with local academic and nationwide NHS partners.
• Locally you will set technical standards and architectural direction within data science as our stack matures, and support other data scientists to develop and deploy advanced solutions.

If you'd enjoy the freedom to shape a growing data science capability, build models on a rich linked dataset in a cloud native platform, and see your models genuinely change how care is planned and delivered, we'd love to hear from you.

Person Specification

Education/ Knowledge and Qualifications

• Educated to Master level / equivalent experience in Data/analytics field.
• Evidence of post qualifying and continuing professional development.
• Demonstrable knowledge in relevant analytical fields, their associated methods, and their potential for application within healthcare, including advanced statistics, epidemiology, data science, econometrics, and operational research.
• Expert knowledge of the role of analysis in improving decision quality and be capable of supporting advanced decision-making methods (e.g. multicriteria decision analysis).
• Expert understanding of advanced analytical methods, including a specialism of one or more of machine learning, simulation or causal inference.
• An understanding of the aims of current healthcare policy in London, including the background of the policy and its implications.

Experience

• Track record of independently leading work with system leaders to influence decision making and translate analytics projects into real world system wide transformation.
• Demonstrated experience in several of the following with at least one specialism: Simulation methods, Regression modelling, Bayesian approaches to modelling, Machine Learning / predictive models, Experimental design, Observational study design using real world data.
• Expert in open-source scripting languages, such as Python/R.
• Experience working with real world data routinely collected from operational systems such as Electronic Patient Records (EPRs).
• Experience supporting team members to develop professionally.
• Experience of managing projects using project principles techniques and tools such as Prince 2, CRISP-DM and agile.

Skills and Abilities

• Expert knowledge of predictive, prescriptive and/or evaluative analytical techniques.
• Expert in delivering actionable insights using static and/or interactive data visualisation where appropriate.
• Able to scope several solutions to a business problem and triage to propose the most appropriate solution within the operational constraints.
• Proven skills in working collaboratively across organisations and managing conflicting expectations.
• Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.

Communication

• Ability to explain the principles, results, implications, strengths and limitations of analytical methods to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Provide and receive highly complex, sensitive and contentious information, negotiate with senior stakeholders on difficult and controversial issues.
• Able to communicate findings and clear actionable insights to non-analyst colleagues.

Values and Behaviours

• Commitment to the values and principles of system working agreed across the ICB footprint.
• Ability to actively promote equality, diversity and inclusion within all areas of responsibility.
• Demonstrates a strong desire to improve outcomes and make a difference by focusing on goals.