Data Scientist

We are recruiting a Data Scientist to be embedded in our Fairer Start Mission.

About Nesta

We are Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good. We design, test and scale solutions to society’s biggest problems. Our three missions are to give every child a fair start, help people live healthy lives, and create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet. For over 20 years, we have worked to support, encourage and inspire innovation. We work in three roles: as an innovation partner working with frontline organisations to design and test new solutions, as a venture builder supporting new and early‑stage businesses, and as a system shaper creating the conditions for innovation. Harnessing the rigour of science and the creativity of design, we work relentlessly to change millions of lives for the better.

The role

Nesta’s Fairer Start Mission is looking for a Data Scientist to lead projects that bring the best approaches from data science and analytics to impact our mission goal. Our work is highly varied, and could include training machine learning models, building web applications, or using a range of analytical techniques to answer questions and generate solutions to tough policy challenges. In the early years, this often means extracting insights from unstructured reports, administrative data, and complex research projects, and turning them into actionable insights for policy makers, local authorities, and individuals. This is an opportunity to play a role in delivering data science projects. If you have a strong background working with data and are motivated by deploying creative data science solutions, as well as contributing to real‑world outcomes for public benefit, then this role is for you.

The team

In Nesta’s "A Fairer Start" mission, our goal is that every child in the UK has the same chance of developing to their full potential in the early years. Working across government, local authorities, academics, and the private sector, we deliver a range of projects to achieve our mission goal by 2030.

The person

We are a team of analytical and technical experts from a range of backgrounds bound by the drive to use our expertise to have social impact. A strong candidate for this role will be interested in putting their analytical and data science skills to work to achieve impact in the early years. Working as part of a wider community of data scientists and quantitative researchers, you will be supported to exercise a significant range of techniques and select the most appropriate methods for the task at hand. You will be used to working flexibly and quickly, adapting to new domain and project contexts alongside your colleagues. Critically, this role requires strong applied research skills—the ability to deliver work to the rigor and standards necessary for impact while working closely and collaboratively with other members across the team and wider organisation. We don’t expect you to be an expert at this stage, but we want you to come to Nesta with a growth mindset where you are ready to experiment and learn.

As a Data Scientist at Nesta you will:

• Deliver analytical components of projects that advance the A Fairer Start mission, ranging from research and analysis to machine learning modeling;
• Build pipelines, clean and analyse datasets using appropriate tools and methods, from wrapping APIs to scraping unstructured data;
• Develop clear and informative data visualisations and outputs;
• Design and scope projects in collaboration with technical colleagues, domain experts and practitioners from other disciplines;
• Communicate outputs of your work to a wide range of internal and external audiences;
• Work in a multidisciplinary team, collaborating with designers, behavioural scientists and researchers;
• Ensure that all quantitative analysis work is reproducible, sustainable, and ethically considered;
• Help the team stay at the cutting edge by keeping abreast of new techniques and developments in the field and seeking ways to use them.

Skills and Qualifications

• Experience programming in Python;
• Experience using data and evidence to drive policy development or decision making;
• Strong data analysis skills, which might include machine learning, statistical methods, causal inference or other techniques;
• Ability to scope and prioritise research questions to maximise impact, balancing methodological rigour with practical resource limitations;
• Willingness to be an active team member who collaborates with others and contributes to strengthening team connections;
• Ability to apply data science approaches that will solve problems and answer questions;
• Ability to communicate with technical and non-technical stakeholders, with evidence of clear and structured written outputs such as blogs, reports or papers;
• Experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams making use of mixed research or innovation methods;
• Experience using Git and GitHub (or equivalent) for version control;
• A Bachelor or Masters qualification in a relevant quantitative discipline and relevant experience in academia, industry or public/third sector;
• Knowledge of early childhood development or UK early years policy;
• A degree of experience of data engineering methods such as scalable data collection (e.g. APIs, web‑scraping), data pipeline technologies (e.g. Airflow, Luigi, Metaflow) or database management systems (SQL or NoSQL);
• Experience of working in a policy context for a consultancy, think tank or other fast‑paced research environment.

What we offer

• Salary: £38,600 - £53,000 (offers are expected to be made at the bottom of the band) plus array of benefits, including private medical insurance, dental insurance, the ability to buy and sell annual leave, eyecare vouchers and more;
• Location: This role is based in London, hybrid working arrangement with a minimum of two days in the office;
• Term: Permanent;
• Hours: This is a full‑time role but we offer a range of flexible working arrangements and encourage our people to take advantage of them. Many do;
• Flexibility: This role is available to be a job‑share.

At Nesta we believe that a diverse workforce leads to an organisation that is more innovative, more creative and gets better results. We want our workforce to represent the diversity of the people and communities we serve. We also want our workplace to be one where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, and where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop. This means that when we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. It also means that we are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential employees may need to in order to be successful. We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we can to accommodate flexible working, including working from home, compressed or part‑time hours, job shares and other arrangements. Please just let us know in your application or at any stage throughout the process (and beyond) if these are options you’d like to explore.