JOB SUMMARY

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.
UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.
Data science is a broad and fast-moving field spanning maths, statistics, software engineering and communications. Data scientists will often work as part of a multidisciplinary team, using data and analytics to inform and achieve organisational goals.

In this role, you will:

• be inquisitive
• explore and visualise data
• make recommendations to address complex problems and to inform strategic and operational decision making
• use data ethically and appropriately
• be innovative and adaptable
• explore existing and new data using a range of statistical tools and techniques, such as machine learning and predictive analytics
• find patterns in data and transform them into organisational insight

The Chief Data Officer Group (CDO) consists of a large community of data scientists, government analysts (GSG, GORS, GES, GSR), mathematical modellers, epidemiologists, information specialists, and data engineers. This is a unique opportunity to help provide crucial information and insight to support the management of high-profile health incidents alongside ongoing surveillance activities. UKHSA has a strong data science community with learning opportunities, community groups and hackathon events. We predominantly code in Python and R and utilise AWS and Azure based cloud environments. The teams use Agile ways of working including software such as Confluence and Jira to manage delivery. Our Enterprise Data and Analytics Platform (EDAP) is enriched with curated, consistent, and high-quality data from existing platforms as well as providing access to a range of analytical tooling.

JOB DESCRIPTION

At UKHSA we recruit to a standardised job descriptions for data scientists. We are currently hiring to the following role:
Data Science Hub – The Data Science Hub applies innovative data science and AI techniques to advance UKHSA’s strategic goals by providing specialist support and empowering teams across UKHSA to use these capabilities effectively. We deliver impactful, well-documented, and maintainable data science and AI solutions. We work closely with scientific and analytical teams, promote best practices and continuously upskill team members with varied projects. We have deployed multiple LLM based products into production on a High-Performance Computing cluster (HPC) in key areas of focus including Hepatitis and Tuberculosis.
We also anticipate additional roles becoming available in future from which we may appoint from the reserve list of strong candidates. One such role is outlined below:
Public Health Analysis team - We are a collaborative, customer-facing group working across the full range of hazards to public health. We draw on all available data sources, particularly public health data and hospitalisation data, to deliver timely, actionable insights for senior leaders and ministers. Our work combines rigorous quantitative analysis with intelligence assessment techniques to address critical questions. These include identifying sectors and communities at heightened risk of high-consequence infections and evaluating the domestic impact of emerging health threats. We provide near real-time intelligence on epidemiological risks and transmission during periods of healthcare pressure. We also deliver analysis products of cross-cutting public health hazards to support informed, evidence-led strategic decision-making at very senior levels.
The GDD Profession consists of people who work in a digital, data or technology specialist role. They design, build and run government digital services. They are responsible for the way we find, access and use data and for the technology infrastructure which support those services. There are currently about 18,000 people working in the Profession. The Profession consists of people working within specialist communities of practice. There is a full list of roles on GOV.UK: Capability Framework

PLEASE WRITE 250 WORDS PER BEHAVIOUR

The behaviours are:

• Working together
• Communicating and Influencing
• Changing and Improving

This should outline how you consider your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.
The Application form and supporting statement will be marked together

Longlisting: In the event of a large number of applications we will longlist into 3 piles of:

• Meets all essential criteria
• Meets some essential criteria
• Meets no essential criteria

The pile ‘meets all essential criteria’ will proceed to shortlisting.

Shortlisting: In the event of a large number of applications we will shortlist on the lead criteria of:

• Strong proficiency in applying analytical and statistical techniques using a variety of software/codebases including practitioner level knowledge of coding including version control, SQL, R and/or Python or other programming languages relevant to data science.

Desirable criteria may be used in the event of a large number of applications/large amount of successful candidates (please see attached job description).
If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview & assessment
Please do not exceed 1500 words in total. We will not consider any words over and above this number.
Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

NATIONALITY REQUIREMENTS

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements

DETAILED JOB DESCRIPTION AND MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

• Applied maths, statistics and scientific practices: You can apply analytical methods including exploratory data analysis, visualisation and statistical testing to reach accurate conclusions. You can use analytical approaches to interpret data confidently. You can summarise and describe data to support decision making.
• Data engineering and manipulation: You can select and use the most appropriate tools and techniques to manipulate and transform the data for data science products. You can collaborate with data engineers.
• Data science innovation: You can apply data science innovation in your approach to new questions, opportunities, data and techniques by using an inquisitive mind. You can improve methods and maximise insights. You can apply your data science innovation to produce creative solutions to data science problems.
• Delivering Business Impact: You can understand processes, data and strategic priorities. You can apply data science techniques to produce and present data science products. You can design solutions that meet user needs, allowing for design and ethics standards. You can work towards the successful delivery of products and establish maintenance requirements.
• Developing data science capability: You can work with data scientists and developers to share skills. You can ensure that your team can access the right technologies to create products. You can develop your data science skills. You can routinely engage with and update your continuous professional development (CPD).
• Ethics and privacy (data science): You can understand and comply with frameworks, standards and laws, including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Equalities Act. You can work with legal, policy and public colleagues, government departments and ministers to clearly communicate ethical issues and ideas. You can store and treat data appropriately.
• Programming and build (data science): You can use programming tools to undertake analysis and create scalable data products. You can identify and reuse common approaches and code. You can document and test code to ensure its quality. You can understand the organisation’s tech stack and get code into production by working with developers and architects.
• Understanding product delivery: You can use different product delivery methods (such as Agile) and phases to make decisions. You can work collaboratively with other professionals. You can use knowledge of product management to deploy data science products into the organisation. You can show data science is used effectively to support products and services.

In this role, you will:

• be inquisitive
• explore and visualise data
• make recommendations to address complex problems and to inform strategic and operational decision making
• use data ethically and appropriately
• be innovative and adaptable
• explore existing and new data using a range of statistical tools and techniques, such as machine learning and predictive analytics
• find patterns in data and transform them into organisational insigh