Research & Development Data Scientist

Comunidadlift; Burton upon Trent; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Event day tickets at Wembley Stadium

Free lunches at Wembley Stadium and St

Private medical cover

Contributory pension

25 days annual leave

Hybrid working model

Job summary

The FA is seeking a Research & Development Data Scientist to design and build state-of-the-art statistical and ML models for England teams. You will translate complex outputs into actionable insights for a wide range of stakeholders and embed data-driven decisions across football operations.

You will work across data science, engineering and visualization, build robust pipelines, and push methodological boundaries while ensuring rigorous validation and documentation.

Qualifications

• Master’s in a highly quantitative field; PhD desirable but not essential.
• Strong grounding in statistics and ML with ability to critique literature.
• Practical data science experience with real-world data and football datasets.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement world-leading statistical and ML models.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate outputs into insights.
• Develop data visualisations and deploy them in web apps.
• Document model development and ensure rigour and validation.
• Engage with data engineering to integrate analytics pipelines.

Skills

Statistical modelling

ML & AI theory

Data science practice

Python programming

Communication skills

Education

Master's degree (math/statistics/computer science)

PhD desirable

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

GitHub

React

Job description

The FA is excited to be recruiting a Research & Development Data Scientist who will play a key role within the Research & Development function of the Insights team. The primary focus of this role is to design and build world-leading statistical and machine learning models that provide a competitive advantage to England teams.

The successful candidate will develop innovative methodologies to model diverse aspects of international football and deliver actionable insights to a wide range of stakeholders. Leveraging their technical expertise, the Research & Development Data Scientist will design, train and validate statistical and machine learning models, working closely with stakeholders to ensure cutting-edge, data-driven insights are effectively communicated and embedded into decision-making.

Whatwill you be doing?

The Research & Development Data Scientist will play a pivotal role in creating and implementing advanced analytical models to provide actionable insights and empower informed decision-making.

Data Science Research:

• Play a leading role in designing and implementing world-leading statistical and machine learning models, drawing insight from football datasets including event data, optical and broadcast tracking data, and GPS/performance data.
• Creatively apply advanced techniques across a range of problems, using the freedom to experiment with many different approaches on long-term projects to provide genuinely novel solutions.
• Research emerging methods across statistics, ML/AI, and adjacent fields to evaluate their applicability to football modelling.
• Effectively utilise AI coding agents and tooling to accelerate the speed of development.
• Maintain high standards of statistical rigour, ensuring any findings that are communicated to stakeholders have been appropriately validated.
• Monitor model performance over time, refining where necessary to ensure continued accuracy and relevance.
• Contribute to a culture of peer review within the team, offering and welcoming constructive feedback to improve the quality and rigour of modelling work.

Data Engineering:

• Work closely with the Senior Data Architect and Development Team to ensure seamless integration of analytics reporting and models.
• Work within our existing cloud infrastructure, writing pipelines where appropriate to allow others in the wider Insights team to access key model outputs.
• Ensure model development and testing is well-documented, with code written to a professional standard.

Data Visualisation:

• Collaborate with key stakeholders to translate complex model outputs into actionable insights through impactful data visualisations.
• Add to our existing web apps to deploy these visualisations and allow stakeholders to explore model outputs.
• Provide technical guidance and support to stakeholders to enhance their understanding and utilisation of these tools.

Other:

• Executes additional tasks as required to meet the FA’s changingpriorities.
• Comply with all company policies and procedures to ensure the highest standards of health, safety, and well-being can be maintained.
• As part of the FA’s commitment to ensuring a safe environment for everyone in football, every employee will be required to complete a DBS check. The level of the check required will be based on the activity of the specific job role and in line with legislation and government guidance.

What are we looking for?

Essential for the role:

• A Master’s degree in a highly quantitative field (mathematics/statistics/computer science, etc.). A PhD is desirable but not essential.
• Strong theoretical grounding in statistics and machine learning, with the ability to engage with the methodology behind advanced data science techniques.
• Ability to critically evaluate contemporary academic literature.
• Practical data science experience, using real‑world data to provide actionable insights. Experience with football‑specific datasets (e.g. event data or tracking data) is strongly desirable but not essential.
• Proficiency in a programming language suited to statistical modelling (Python preferred)
• Ability to be physically present at St. George’s Park.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Beneficial to have:

• Evidence of exceptional academic ability (for example, a strong record of achievement from a leading university)
• Experience working within an elite football environment.
• Experience with AI coding agents (e.g. Claude Code, Codex)
• Experience using cloud‑based computing environments (Google Cloud Platform is especially advantageous).
• Experience with GitHub for working on collaborative coding projects.
• Experience creating deep‑learning models (e.g. GNNs)
• Demonstrable experience collaborating with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders on analytics projects.
• Experience developing web applications (React is especially advantageous)

What’s in it for you?

We are committed to ensuring everyone can flourish in their roles. To achieve this, we have unique office spaces under the arch of the iconic Wembley National Stadium, which is the home of English Football. We are also delighted to offer a world-class Elite Performance Centre, St. George’s Park in Staffordshire, which is an exceptional setting to develop and inspire high-performing England teams and leaders.

We pride ourselves on offering a competitive salary as well as great opportunities to develop and grow in your role. But that is not all; we also have a range of exciting benefits, some of which can be found below:

• Access to event day tickets at Wembley Stadium, alongside a host of regular internal events throughout the season, encourages you to connect and learn with your colleagues and look after your mental health and well-being.
• Free, nutritious lunches at Wembley Stadium and St. George’s Park.
• Private medical cover funded by The FA.
• A contributory pension scheme.
• An additional ‘Thank You’ day’s leave, volunteering days, as well as 25 days of annual leave (based on a full-time, permanent contract)
• A hybrid working model offering greater flexibility.