SC cleared Senior Data Scientist

SR2; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 104,000 - 136,000; Part time

Job summary

SR2 is seeking a Senior Data Scientist to join a major government programme in London. You will work on a large-scale data matching engine, analysing how personal data is matched across systems and refining rules to reduce false positives and improve efficiency.

This role requires active SC clearance and offers a 3–6 month contract with hybrid onsite requirements (London). You will optimise entity resolution, improve precision/recall, and collaborate with engineering to push updates into

Qualifications

• Experience with entity resolution, record linkage or fuzzy matching.
• Strong Python experience with pandas, NumPy and scikit-learn.
• Solid SQL skills and large dataset experience.
• Experience with Elasticsearch, Kubernetes and Docker.
• Understanding of precision/recall and false positives.
• Active SC clearance required.
• Government/ defence or identity matching experience advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Analyse and optimise entity resolution and data matching performance.
• Refine, test and implement matching rules using data-driven insights.
• Improve matching accuracy, precision and recall.
• Work closely with engineering teams to deliver improvements into production.
• Support performance testing and ongoing optimisation.

Skills

Entity resolution

Python (pandas NumPy scikit-learn)

SQL

SC clearance

Data matching

AWS

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Bash

Jenkins

Ansible

Tools

Elasticsearch

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

Senior Data Scientist - SC Cleared

Location: London - 2 days per week onsite
Rate: £650 per day (Inside IR35)
Contract: 3-6 months
Start: ASAP
Clearance: Active SC Clearance required

The Opportunity

We're looking for an experienced Data Scientist to join a major government programme, working on a large-scale data matching engine used to identify potential national security risks.

You’ll focus on improving the accuracy and performance of an existing matching engine, analysing how personal data is matched across multiple systems and refining the rules to reduce false positives and improve operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities

• Analyse and optimise entity resolution and data matching performance.
• Refine, test and implement matching rules using data-driven insights.
• Improve matching accuracy, precision and recall.
• Work closely with engineering teams to deliver improvements into production.
• Support performance testing and ongoing optimisation.

Key Skills & Experience

• Entity resolution, record linkage or fuzzy matching experience.
• Strong Python experience, including pandas, NumPy and scikit-learn.
• Solid SQL skills and experience working with large datasets.
• Experience with Elasticsearch, Kubernetes and Docker.
• Understanding of precision, recall and false-positive optimisation.
• Exposure to Kafka, AWS, PostgreSQL, Bash, Jenkins or Ansible would be beneficial.
• Previous experience in government, defence, security or identity matching environments is advantageous.

Security Clearance: Candidates must hold active SC clearance.