Principal Data Scientist / Principal ML Consultant

Principal Data Scientist / ML Consultant (Contract)

Duration: 6 Months

Engagement: Full-Time Contract

Working Model: Hybrid (UK-based)

Location: Client site attendance as required

Start Date: ASAP

Overview

We are seeking a hands-on Principal Data Scientist / ML Consultant to lead the delivery of an existing machine learning programme through to a production-grade AWS deployment.

This role requires someone who can provide technical leadership, mentor internal teams, and actively build, deploy, and operationalise machine learning solutions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop predictive models to support commercial decision-making.
• Utilise AutoML tools (e.g. AutoGluon, H2O AutoML, PyCaret) to accelerate model development.
• Assess, prepare, and engineer data for modelling.
• Deploy and operationalise ML solutions within AWS.
• Implement MLOps practices including monitoring, retraining, and model governance.
• Provide technical leadership and knowledge transfer to internal teams.
• Manage stakeholder communication, providing clear recommendations and updates.

Essential Skills

• Strong hands-on Python and machine learning experience.
• Proven track record delivering ML solutions into production.
• Experience with AutoML frameworks.
• Strong understanding of regression, forecasting, and predictive analytics.
• Data engineering and pipeline development capability.
• AWS ML deployment experience (e.g. SageMaker, ECS, Lambda).
• Practical MLOps experience.
• Excellent stakeholder management and consulting skills.
• Experience mentoring data science teams.
• AWS-native ML tooling and cloud architecture experience.
• Experience delivering data-driven commercial or optimisation solutions.

Deliverables

• Production-grade ML solution deployed in AWS.
• Established deployment, monitoring, and retraining processes.
• Knowledge transfer and upskilling of the internal team.