SC Cleared Data Scientist - Remote - 3 month contract

Data Scientist (x2) - Contract Role

Location: Remote (UK)
Employment Type: Contract - 3 months
Day Rate: £500 per day
IR35 Status: Inside IR35
Clearance: Active SC Clearance required
SFIA Level: 4-5

Role Overview

We are looking for two Data Scientists with strong experience in data science and machine learning, particularly involving text-based data and NLP-related problems. This role is suited to someone operating at SFIA Level 4 or 5 who can work independently, contribute to solution direction, and confidently challenge assumptions to improve outcomes.

You will work closely with technical and business stakeholders to develop, evaluate, and deploy data-driven solutions, while helping ensure that proposed approaches are practical, scalable, and evidence-based.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement machine learning models and analytical solutions, with a focus on text and unstructured data.
• Apply NLP and related techniques to extract insight and support business decision-making.
• Explore, clean, and transform complex datasets from multiple sources.
• Evaluate proposed analytical approaches and challenge assumptions where appropriate.
• Communicate findings, risks, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Work independently across the full data science life cycle, from discovery through deployment and monitoring.
• Collaborate with engineering and platform teams to operationalise models and workflows.
• Contribute to best practices in experimentation, model validation, governance, and reproducibility.

Required Skills and Experience

• Proven experience in data science and machine learning roles.
• Strong experience working with text analytics, NLP, or other machine learning approaches involving unstructured data.
• Ability to think critically and challenge solution assumptions constructively.
• Comfortable working independently with limited supervision.
• Strong programming skills in Python and common data science libraries (eg pandas, scikit-learn, TensorFlow/PyTorch, spaCy, Hugging Face).
• Experience with model evaluation, experimentation, and statistical methods.
• Ability to communicate complex analytical concepts clearly.
• Active SC Clearance (must be in place before start date).

Desirable Skills

• Experience with Microsoft Azure and Azure-based data or ML services (eg Azure ML, Databricks, Synapse).
• Familiarity with MLOps, cloud deployment, or production model management.
• Experience working in cross-functional agile teams.
• Exposure to government or public sector data projects.