Senior Data Scientist - (Privacy & Security Controls)

Our Future Health UK; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Pension up to 12%

30 days holiday

Parental leave

Cycle to work

Home & Tech savings

EV scheme

Employee referral bonus

Wellbeing support

Central London office

Job summary

Our Future Health in London is seeking a Senior Data Scientist specializing in privacy, security and risk modelling to design, build and scale data-driven controls protecting participants while enabling cutting-edge research.

This hands-on role combines advanced data science with engineering, governance and security practices, delivering safe outputs, de-identification, synthetic data, and auditable tooling within a hybrid workspace that blends office and remote work.

Qualifications

• Significant experience applying data science, machine learning, statistical modelling or advanced analytics to complex real-world datasets.
• Strong applied statistical expertise, including quantifying risk and uncertainty, evaluating assumptions, and designing validation approaches.
• Strong Python skills and production-quality code experience.
• Experience working in cross-functional teams with engineers, data engineers or platform teams to deliver data products, pipelines and services.
• User-focused approach to technical delivery, translating needs into technical requirements.
• Applied ML experience and understanding of privacy attacks on data and models.
• Exposure to privacy-preserving ML and PETs (e.g., differential privacy, secure computing).
• Experience with sensitive or regulated data and privacy/security risks.
• Ability to translate ambiguous problems into clear data science questions and practical requirements.
• Good communication skills to explain complex concepts to non-specialists.
• Delivery-focused mindset.

Responsibilities

• Develop data-driven approaches to disclosure control and safe outputs review for scaling TRE Airlock.
• Collaborate with Airlock reviewers and users to balance automation with human judgement.
• Contribute to de-identification and re-identification risk assessment across datasets and access models.
• Develop approaches to safe AI using health data and privacy risk management for trained models.
• Explore synthetic data generation and evaluate privacy, fidelity and utility trade-offs.
• Work with Information Security on data-driven security control assessment and threat detection.
• Build prototypes and production-grade code with engineering teams.
• Coordinate with governance, legal, ethics and operations to ensure controls meet requirements.
• Stay updated on privacy tech, privacy-enhancing technologies and related methods.

Skills

Data science

Machine learning

Statistical modelling

Python

Cross-functional teams

Explainability

Risk modelling

Privacy attacks

Privacy-preserving ML

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

MLOps

Production-grade code

Communication skills

Delivery mindset

Tools

Python

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

MLOps

Airflow

TensorFlow

PyTorch

Flower

Opacus

TensorFlow Federated

Job description

Do you want to apply data science to one of the most important challenges in health research: enabling safe use of sensitive data at scale?

In this role,you'lldevelop privacy and security controls that protect participants while helping researchers generate insights fasterand moresafely.

Our Future Healthis an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors, designed tohelp people live healthier lives for longer through better prevention, earlierdetectionand improved treatment of diseases. We will speed up the discovery of new methods of early disease detection, and the evaluation of new diagnostic tools, to helpidentifyand treat diseases early,when outcomes are usually better. With over 2.5M volunteers across the UK,we'renow the world's biggest health researchprogrammeof its kind, and our volunteer group is also more diverse than other, similar health researchprogrammes.

Technology and data are central to our mission.Our systems power web sites, clinics across the UK,secureanalyticsand researchsystems,pipelines thatprocesshighly sensitivehealthand geneticdata, and we are continuing to grow ourdata science capability to support this ambition.

To realise our ambition safely, we need to continue developing world-class approaches to data privacy, datasecurityand responsible access to health data. We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist specialising in privacy,securityand risk modelling, to help design,buildand scale data-driven controls that protect participants while enablingcutting-edgeresearch.

This is a hands-on role whereyou'llapply strong data science skills and an engineering mindset to real operational problems: safe outputs review, re-identification risk, privacy risks in trained models, synthetic data, and data-driven security controls. You will work closely with teams across Product, Security, Engineering, Science, Data Protection, and Researcher Operations as well as external experts to develop practical,scalableand evidence-based solutions.

You will be expected to work closely with users of these systems including researchers, Airlock reviewers, access governancereviewersand security specialists, to understand their workflows, painpointsand risk decisions. A key part of the role will be turning complex privacy and security problems into trusted algorithms,evidenceand automated support.

Whatyou'lldo

• Develop data-driven approaches to disclosure control and safe outputs review, supporting the scaling of our TRE (Trusted Research Environment) Airlock. This may include building algorithms and automated review tools to classify outputs, detect potentially disclosive content,identifypatterns of risk, and provide explainable decision support for human reviewers.
• Work directly with Airlock reviewers and operational users to understand where automation can help, where human judgement is essential, and how tools should be designed to support consistent,auditableand proportionate decisions.
• Contribute to our approach to de-identification and re-identification risk assessment, helping us assess how privacy risk changes across datasets, accessmodelsand analytical outputs.
• Help us develop our approaches to safe AI using health data, including how we assess and manage privacy risks associated with trained models.
• Explore and develop approaches to synthetic data generation, assessing how synthetic data can be used safely and usefully, and how to evaluate the privacy,fidelityand utility trade-offs of different approaches.
• Collaborate with our Information Security team on data-driven security control assessment, threatdetectionand monitoring approaches, including identifying signals of risky behaviour, anomalous activity or misuse of data access environments, and cyber risk quantification.
• Build prototypes and production-quality code, working with engineers to turn promising approaches into robust,maintainableand auditable tools.
• Work closely with governance, legal, ethics and operational colleagues to ensure technical controls fulfil their requirements.
• Keep up with emerging methods in statistical disclosure control, privacy-enhancing technologies, AI security, synthetic data, de-identificationand privacy-preserving computation.

This role will be fully hybrid with the expectation we get together in our Holborn, London office at least once per month.

Requirements

We welcome applications from all who may not feel they match the full criteria, so if you have most of the below,we'dlike to hear from you:

• Significant experienceapplying data science, machine learning, statisticalmodellingor advanced analytics to complex real-world datasets.
• Strong applied statisticalexpertise, including the ability to quantify risk and uncertainty, evaluate assumptions, design validation approaches, interpret imperfect or incomplete evidence, and communicate the limitations of statistical or machine learning models.
• Strong Python skills and experience writing maintainable, production-quality code.
• Experience working in cross-functional teams with software engineers, dataengineersor platform teams to design and deliver data products, pipelines, analyticalservicesor decision-support tools.
• A user-focused approach to technical delivery: you are comfortable working with people whooperate, review, govern or depend on data systems, and can translate their needs into technical requirements.
• Applied machine learning experience and understanding of common privacy attacks against data and models, such as memorisation, membership inference, attribute inference, modelinversionor leakage through model outputs.
• Exposure to privacy-preserving machine learning, privacy-enhancingtechnologiesor adjacent research areas (e.g. federated learning, secure aggregation, differential privacy, or confidential computing)
• Experience working with sensitive,confidentialor regulated data and a strong understanding of privacy,confidentialityor information security risks.
• Ability to translate ambiguous operational, governance or security problems into clear data science questions and practical technical requirements.
• Good communicationskills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-specialist stakeholders.
• A pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset

It would be a bonus if you have any of the following experience -

• Working with health data or biomedical research data, electronic health records, and ideally genomic data
• Developing models, algorithms or rule-based systems that support human decision-making, ideally where explainability, auditability and risk management are important
• Anomaly detection, behavioural analytics, securitymonitoringor detection engineering.
• Risk quantification methods from fields such as actuarial science, epidemiology, operational research,orcyber risk
• Familiarity with UK data protection, researchgovernanceor health data access expectations.
• Experience with PETs or privacy-preserving ML frameworks such as Flower,Opacus, TensorFlow Federated or similar
• Cloud platforms, containerisation, CI/CD,MLOpsor production ML systems.
• Experience evaluating synthetic data using both utility and privacy metrics.

Hiring Process

We feelhiring should be transparentand give you arealsensefor whatOur Future Healthis like.Here'swhatyou canexpect:

• Initial chatwith our Talent team (30 min)to get to know each other, discuss the role, and answer any questionsyou have
• 1stinterviewwith ourHead of Data Operations(25min)- this is an opportunity to meet your potential line manager andfor you both toalign on role expectations
• Technicalinterviewwith2-3members from our tech and datateams (60min).This will include ashorttaskyou'llneed to prepare in advance of the interview and is designed to get a sense for howyou'dapproach the real-world responsibilities of this role
• Final stage competency interview (60 min)with a small cross-functional panel of your potential new stakeholders. This willfocus on how you collaborate, work with stakeholders, and navigate ambiguity and challenges in real-world projects

Benefits

• Competitive base salary from £80,000
• Generous Pension Scheme - We invest in your future with employer contributions of up to 12%
• 30 Days Holiday pro rata + Bank Holidays - Enjoy a generous holiday allowance with the flexibility to take bank holidays when it suits you
• Enhanced Parental Leave - Supporting you during life's biggest moments
• Cycle to Work Scheme - Save 25-39% on a new bike and accessories through salary sacrifice
• Home & Tech Savings - Get up to 8% off on IKEA and Currys products, spreading the cost over 12 months through salary sacrifice
• EV Scheme - Save up to 40% on abrand newelectric vehicle all-inclusive package through salary sacrifice
• £1,000 Employee Referral Bonus - Know someone amazing? Get rewarded for bringing them on board!
• Wellbeing Support - Access to Mental Health First Aiders, plus 24/7 online GP services and an Employee AssistanceProgrammefor you and your family
• A Great Place to Work - We have a lovely Central London office in Holborn, and offer flexible and remote working arrangements

Join us -let'sprevent disease together.

At Our Future Health, werecognisethe importance of having a diverse workforce and ensuring that all candidates, regardless of their background, haveequitableaccess to our application process. We proactively encourage applicants who identify as having a disability, neurodiversity, or long-term health conditions to let us know if they require any reasonable adjustments as part of their application process.