Data Scientist Summer Placement in Cheshire, Warrington

The Hartree Centre helps UK businesses and organisations of any size to explore and adopt supercomputing, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for enhanced productivity, smarter innovation and economic growth. Backed by significant UK government funding and strategic partnerships with industry leaders such as IBM, Atos and the University of Liverpool, the Hartree Centre is home to some of the most advanced digital technologies and experts in the UK. Our experts collaborate with industry and the research community in all sectors to explore the latest emerging technologies, upskill teams, and apply practical digital solutions to individual and industry-wide challenges for societal and economic benefit.

We are seeking to recruit a Data Science Summer Placement to join our Data Science group. Collaborating with our industry and research partners, we develop tools, frameworks, and applications to accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies across UK industry and the public sector. This placement will be working within a long-term collaboration between the Hartree Centre and an international research partner in the field of astronomy. You will work alongside your colleagues, and our collaborators, to implement data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence solutions to monitor operations at a leading international astronomical observatory. There will be scope for you to be able to take ownership of one of several identified potential sub-projects. You will regularly interact with our other technical teams, including AI and Software Engineering, providing you with a fantastic opportunity to understand how real‑world solutions are developed and delivered across the Hartree Centre.

What You’ll Learn

• Data Science Context: Relationship with computer science, statistics, and software engineering; impact of different schools of thought.
• Governance & Ethics: Data security, bias, fairness, compliance, and international regulations.
• Data Systems: Processing and storage (on‑premise vs cloud), database types (relational, NoSQL, real‑time).
• Modelling, event detection, predictive analytics, machine learning, AI, NLP, computer vision.
• Development Standards: Programming practices, testing, source control.
• Data Landscape: Sources (files, systems, APIs, social media), formats (structured/unstructured), patterns in real‑world data.
• Problem Reformulation: Translate organisational challenges into Data Science problems.
• Data Engineering: Source, pipeline, transform, and store data.
• Programming & Analysis: Use appropriate languages/tools for manipulation, visualisation, and integration.
• Model Building: Statistical analysis, feature engineering, machine learning, optimisation.
• Solution Implementation: Evaluate architectures, deployment options, ROI, and scalability.

Key Duties & Responsibilities

• Work on building solutions to customers’ data science challenges.
• Learn and apply data‑centric analytics and AI technologies.
• Regular collaboration with academic partners, validating conclusions and presenting results to customers, including using advanced visualisation.
• Publish non‑confidential results to build the Hartree Centre and your own profiles in the community.

Person Specification

Essential:

• You are in full time education at university, and will be returning to university/your studies to complete your undergraduate degree once the summer placement has concluded.
• You have the right to live and work in the UK for the duration of the placement.
• A strong interest in Data Science, technology and computing.
• Undertaking a STEM degree with a significant statistical or mathematical component.
• Ability to work as part of a team and independently.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including focus and quality of cover letter.
• Confident with strong attention to detail and able to prioritise tasks effectively.
• Self‑motivated with the ability to take initiative to solve problems.

Desirable:

• Programming experience with at least one language, e.g. Python.
• Basic knowledge of data science and visualisation libraries such as Pandas, Seaborn, Matplotlib and others.
• Knowledge of basic concepts in statistics (e.g. mean, variance, probability).

Employee Benefits

• 30 days holiday pro rata.
• Flexible working hours.
• Easily accessible public transport links/ free parking.
• Excellent learning and development opportunities.

As this job does not fulfil the UK Government minimum criterion for obtaining sponsored migrant worker status, we will be unable to apply for sponsorship for anyone not eligible to work in the UK. At interview, all shortlisted candidates are required to bring with them identification documents and original documents that prove they hold or can obtain the right to work in the UK.

Please note that we can only accept a maximum of 2 applications per candidate. Part of our application process involves submitting your CV and a cover letter. Your cover letter should address your suitability for the opportunity based how you meet each essential criteria stated in this advert. Please note that we hold the right to close this vacancy early if a sufficient number of applications have been received.

We ask some of the biggest questions in the universe, to answer some of the biggest challenges in the world. Together, our scientists, technologists, engineers and business support team explore the unknown across every field you could think of. And they turn what they find into work that changes the world around us. What could you achieve with the world‑leading facilities and experts of one of Europe's largest research organisations by your side? Join us and discover what’s possible!