Data Science Lead

Fitch Group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 85,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading data analytics firm based in London is seeking a Data Scientist Lead responsible for overseeing the technical roadmap and mentoring a growing team. The role involves developing scalable ML models, collaborating with various experts, and ensuring high data quality standards. Candidates should have substantial experience with Python and AI techniques, and a strong record of effective communication and collaboration. This position offers a hybrid work environment with a strong commitment to learning and employee wellbeing.

Benefits

Hybrid work environment

Comprehensive healthcare offerings

Retirement planning and tuition reimbursement

Qualifications

• Proven experience translating business problems into measurable AI solutions.
• Substantial experience querying, cleaning, compiling, and analyzing big data.
• Demonstrated experience with interpretable AI techniques.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical roadmap for data quality and model governance.
• Mentor the data science team and guide best practices.
• Develop and maintain robust ML and data pipelines.

Skills

Technical communication skills

Experience with Python

Understanding of AI techniques

Strong collaboration

Education

Advanced degree in NLP, ML, or related fields

Tools

Python libraries (numpy, pandas, scikit, etc.)

SQL

Job description

BMI is currently seeking a Data Scientist Lead based out of our London or Manchester office.

BMI's systematic, independent and data-driven market insights, analysis and forecasts enable customers to recognize and assess risks and opportunities across markets and industries. For almost 40 years, we have provided impartial views to support our customers’ strategic plans and investment decisions.

At BMI, we’re proud of the work we do to help our clients manage risks and opportunities in global markets, which began in 1984 and continues to this day. By stepping into a role here, you will help shape the strategic decisions of the world’s leading organizations. As a member of our team, your role will go beyond conventional boundaries. You will collaborate with industry experts, thought leaders, and visionary executives, collectively working towards shaping the future of businesses that span a multitude of sectors. Our people are at the heart of everything we do, and we continuously strive to offer our colleagues a great place to work, with opportunities to learn, innovate, develop their careers, and serve the community.

Want to learn more about a career at BMI? Visit: https://careers.fitch.group/content/BMI/

About the Team

BMI's team integrates cross-domain expertise (Economics, Politics, 20+ industries, ESG, Commodities) and computer science to create systematic country-by-country risk analytics and time series forecasts that are transparent and can be validated. We build and maintain robust models that our customers use to identify and manage country risks.

Joining as a Data Scientist Lead to support risk research and analysis, you will lead the ideation and prioritization of BMI’s Data Science roadmap alongside BMI’s Product Team, and provide leadership and coordination to BMI’s growing team of Data Scientists.

As BMI’s Data Science Lead, you will participate and oversee the design, build, and deployment of quantitative models that power advanced analytics and insights for our clients. You will work closely with Developers, Product and Content teams (country analysts, industry analysts, economists, political scientists) to deliver interpretable, scalable solutions. Your expertise will help us innovate and adapt our modeling frameworks to address diverse customer needs in a fast-paced, collaborative environment.

How You’ll Make an Impact:

• Own the technical roadmap, setting standards for data quality, feature engineering, model governance to ensure scalable, reliable delivery.
• Mentor and upskill the data science team, guiding best practices in experimentation, causal inference, NLP/LLM, and time-series forecasting, review code and models for rigor and reproducibility
• Establish responsible AI practices, including bias testing, explainability, performance monitoring, and documentation; collaborate with legal/compliance on data usage and model transparency.
• Prototype and test new approaches for extracting insights from structured and unstructured data for our core customer base
• Develop and maintain robust ML and data pipelines for experimentation and deployment.
• Design, build, and optimize risk models for analytics and generative AI applications using our proprietary NLP data generation process.
• Collaborate cross functionally with Economists, Industry Analysts, Political Scientists, and Developers.
• Explain model outputs and methodologies to non-technical stakeholders.

You May Be a Good Fit If

• Experience setting standards, code review, elevating best practices, hiring and developing talent, and fostering a culture of rigor, collaboration, and delivery.
• Proven experience translating business problems into measurable AI solutions, defining success metrics, prioritizing roadmaps, and driving adoption and impact.
• Technical communication skills explaining complex models, uncertainty, and trade-offs to non-technical audiences; creating clear documentation.
• Substantial experience querying, cleaning, compiling, and analyzing big data.
• Familiarity applying various computational social science methods including data mining, data visualization, natural language processing, text analysis, and basic time series forecasting and machine learning models.
• Familiarity with scenario analysis/stress-testing, simulation analysis, rare event modeling, and stochastic modeling preferred but not required.
• Substantial experience with Python, R, and relevant libraries (e.g., numpy, pandas, scikit, pytorch, tidyverse, caret, ggplot, etc.).
• Proven experience developing, refining, and monitoring NLP models.
• Familiarity with database management tools and techniques (e.g., SQL, Selenium, S3, Sagemaker, API protocols) is preferred but not required.
• Understanding model evaluation methods and metrics.
• Ability to operationalize non-technical ideas into relevant research designs, features, and model outputs.
• Familiarity with experiment tracking and model management tools (e.g., DVC, Weights & Biases).
• Demonstrated experience with interpretable AI techniques.

What Would Make You Stand Out:

• Leadership / management experience of a Data Science function
• Strong record of collaboration across Data Science, Technology and Product teams
• Exposure to different cloud-based data and analytics platforms (e.g. AWS, DataBricks, Snowflake).
• Advanced degree or certification in NLP, ML, or related fields.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices and tools.
• Hands-on experience with experimentation and model tracking tools (e.g., MLFlow, Weights & Biases).
• Demonstrable impact of technical solutions or projects on decision-making
• Experience working in fast-paced, agile environments.
• Customer-facing experience, notably in understanding end user needs and building collaborative relationships.

Why Choose Fitch

• Hybrid Work Environment: 3 days a week in office required
• A Culture of Learning & Mobility: Dedicated trainings, leadership development and mentorship programs designed to ensure that your time at Fitch will be a continuous learning opportunity
• Investing in Your Future: Retirement planning and tuition reimbursement programs that empower you to achieve your short and long-term goals
• Promoting Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive healthcare offerings that enable physical, mental, financial, social, and occupational wellbeing
• Supportive Parenting Policies: Family-friendly policies, including a generous global parental leave plan, designed to help you balance career and family life effectively
• Inclusive Work Environment: A collaborative workplace where all voices are valued, with Employee Resource Groups that unite and empower our colleagues around the globe
• Dedication to Giving Back: Paid volunteer days, matched funding for donations and ample opportunities to volunteer in your community

Fitch is committed to providing global securities markets with objective, timely, independent and forward-looking credit opinions. To protect Fitch’s credibility and reputation, our employees must take every precaution to avoid conflicts of interest or any appearance of a conflict of interest. Should you be successful in the recruitment process at Fitch Ratings you will be asked to declare any securities holdings and other potential conflicts prior to commencing employment. If you, or your immediate family, have any holdings that may conflict with your work responsibilities, you may be asked to divest yourself of them before beginning work.

Fitch is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, and other statuses protected by law.

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