Data Scientist at UK Research & Innovation, Remote/Swindon, 6 Months, £Contract Rate

We are seeking a Data Scientist to join a live, scaling AI programme delivering practical, production-ready solutions across UKRI’s data landscape. This is a hands-on, delivery-focused role where you will work across the full machine learning lifecycle, taking models from prototype through to live production and ongoing optimisation.

You will be joining an established team at a key growth stage, supporting the expansion of AI initiatives led by the Data Delivery Group, with a focus on real-world, scalable outcomes rather than experimentation.

This role offers the opportunity to work on AI solutions that are already in production, with a clear focus on scaling delivery and driving measurable outcomes.

As a Data Scientist, your main responsibilities will be to:

• Develop and deploy machine learning models into production environments
• Translate prototypes into scalable, production-ready systems
• Design, build and maintain infrastructure to support training, deployment and scaling of ML models
• Prepare and analyse large datasets to support model development
• Extract relevant insights and features from complex datasets
• Build and maintain data pipelines to support model development and deployment
• Evaluate model performance using appropriate metrics and optimise for accuracy  and efficiency
• Monitor models in production and take corrective action where required
• Act as a technical contributor to AI discovery, planning and delivery activities

Essential:

• Strong Python experience applied to real-world machine learning problems
• Additional programming languages such as R or Java beneficial
• Knowledge of machine learning algorithms and frameworks (e.g. TensorFlow, PyTorch)
• Experience working with large datasets, data manipulation and analysis tools
• Familiarity with statistical analysis and data visualisation techniques
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure)
• Experience working in Agile teams
• Strong communication skills and ability to engage non-technical stakeholders