If you are looking for a varied, challenging and rewarding role, West and North London offers an excellent opportunity to make a real difference to local residents.
This is an exciting time to work in commissioning as the NHS continues to evolve. We support career development at every stage and encourage staff to build on their strengths through ongoing learning and training opportunities.
We work closely with partner organisations across West and North London to deliver the best possible care for local communities and remain committed to equality and diversity.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a set of technology that can perform various tasks that typically required human intelligence. Your application is your opportunity to demonstrate to us how you meet the requirements of the role.
We recognise that AI tools can support accessibility, equity and confidence for applicants. However, it’s important that examples and responses genuinely reflect your own experience and abilities, as these will be explored further during the selection process. AI must not be used to provide misleading or false information during any stage of the application journey.
Further guidance can be found in the NLPSS Applicant Toolkit https://royalfree.pagetiger.com/cuuomnr/1
West and North London Integrated Care Board is committed to ensuring that its recruitment processes are carried out with integrity, transparency, and fairness for all applicants. To help maintain these standards, we ask candidates to provide accurate and truthful information throughout the recruitment process.
If incorrect or misleading information is identified, this may affect the progression of an application, any employment offer, or continued employment. As part of our due diligence, the company may verify the information provided by applicants and take appropriate action where necessary.
We do not charge applicants any fees at any stage of the recruitment process, including applications, interviews, sponsorship arrangements, pre-employment checks, or employment offers. All vacancies are advertised through TRAC/NHS Jobs and candidates are assessed solely on their skills, qualifications, experience, and suitability for the role. If you are asked to make a payment in connection with an NHS job opportunity, please treat this as suspicious and contact the organisation directly using the details published on our official career's website.
Applicants can refer to the Fraud Act 2006 for further information: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents
Job overview
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.
Advert
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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.
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Rigorously applying appropriate advanced statistical and data science methodologies to generate robust and reliable insights communicated with appropriate levels of uncertainty
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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
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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
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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
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Matrix management and coaching of senior data scientists to deliver advanced models and productionise tool.
Working for our organisation
Who we are
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.
We bring together many health and care services across west and north London. This means we help hospitals, GPs, community services, councils and charities work better together for local people.
NHS West and North London (WNL) serves over 4.5 million people and covers 13 London boroughs. (Barnet, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Enfield, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster)
What we do
- We plan and fund local health and care services
- We support GPs, hospitals, mental health teams, community clinics and pharmacies.
- We work with councils and community groups so care is joined-up and easy to use.
- We listen to local people and use their ideas to improve services.
- We want health and care to be fair, simple and close to home.
Our strategy
- 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
Detailed job description and main 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.
Please see the attached Job Description and Personal Specification for full duties and responsibilities.
Closing date: 27th September 2026
Task release: w/c 12th October 2026 (approximate)
Date of Interview: w/c 26th October 2026 (approximate)
Note: dates may change if the volume of applications is high.
We reserve the right to close any vacancies when we have received sufficient applications to shortlist.
Applicants who can clearly demonstrate how they meet our role profile requirements will be shortlisted for interview. To enquire about your application or inform us of any changes in your circumstances please ensure you quote your application reference number.
Please ensure you check your email account regularly as this is how we will communicate with you. Invitations for interview are sent by email only, so it is important that you monitor your emails once you have submitted an application online. If you have not heard from us within a month of the closing date you should presume that you have not been shortlisted.
If you are offered a job, information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Record (ESR) system and other secure, internal NHS workforce systems in order to support and manage your appointment within the organisation.
We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults.
As part of our safe recruitment practice pre-employment checks will be undertaken before any appointment is confirmed. Depending on the role a Criminal Records check may be required, all cases of criminal record history are dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Please note, in order to progress your application your data will be processed by our 3rd party recruitment providers – North London Partners Shared Service (NLPSS). As part of pre-employment checks your identity and right to work documentation will be verified remotely (in most circumstances), using a certified identity verification service provider TrustID. You will be asked to capture an image of the relevant documents as well as a “selfie” using your smartphone/tablet (if available) for facial matching. TrustID will also perform a digital address check using Trunarrative and Equifax, which is a soft check and does not leave a footprint on your credit rating. For more information, visit www.trustid.co.uk
References will be required to cover your last 3 years of employment/training. One has to be from your current or most recent employer and the others from your previous employer. The references should be from persons with management responsibility or HR.
The West and North London Integrated Care Board (WNL ICB) uses electronic new starter forms on Trac to collect personal details. Information collected is securely stored and used to set up the employee record on the ESR HR system.
By applying for this role, you accept in the event you are successful that your personal data may be transferred between NHS organisation where your employment transfers within the NHS. This is in accordance with the streamlining programme which is aimed at improving efficiencies within the NHS both to make costs savings for NHS organisations but also to save you time when your employment transfers.
Data Science Lead in London employer: West and North London ICB
NHS West and North London is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work environment where you can truly make a difference in the lives of local residents. With a strong commitment to career development, ongoing training, and a collaborative culture, we empower our staff to excel in their roles while promoting equality and diversity. Join us in shaping the future of healthcare for women, babies, children, and young people across one of the most diverse health systems in the UK.
