Senior Data Scientist - Retail Price Optimisation - Motor

Policy Expert; London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Policy Expert is seeking a Senior Data Scientist skilled in retail price optimisation. This role is integral in driving the use of advanced analytics and machine learning to enhance pricing strategies in a growing team. You will develop models, mentor junior analysts, and contribute to reshaping the insurance pricing landscape. Join a forward-thinking company that invests in technology and data to improve customer experiences and outcomes in the UK insurance market.

Benefits

Pension contributions matched up to 7%

Private medical & dental cover

Learning budget of £1,000 a year with study leave

Enhanced maternity & paternity leave

Travel season ticket loan

Access to exclusive London O2 events

Employee Wellbeing Programme

Prayer room in office

Qualifications

• Deep theoretical knowledge of statistical methods and their practical applications.
• Extensive hands-on experience in delivering high-impact outcomes to complex business problems.
• Proactive leader with a strong bias for innovation and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain customer lifetime value (CLTV) and price sensitivity models.
• Own and deliver pricing optimisation processes and simulate customer outcomes.
• Support and mentor junior analysts, sharing knowledge and promoting best practices.

Skills

Statistical methods

Machine Learning algorithms

SQL

Python

Communication skills

Education

MSc or PhD in a quantitative field

Tools

scikit-learn

XGBoost

SciPy

PyTorch

MLOps

Job description

Policy Expert - Senior Data Scientist - Retail Price Optimisation - Motor

Are you ready to transform the insurance industry?

Policy Expert is a forward-thinking business that loves to get things done. Leveraging proprietary technology and smart data, we offer reliable products and a wow customer experience.

Having achieved rapid growth since being founded in 2011, we've won over 1.5 million customers in Home, Motor and Pet insurance and have been ranked the UK's No.1-rated home insurer by Review Centre since 2013.

Hear from our team about what it's like working at Policy Expert
• About Pricing:

We're at the start of an exciting transformation. With bold investment in pricing, data, and technology, we're building a new Retail Price Optimisation team to redefine how we make pricing decisions. By combining advanced analytics, machine learning, rich data, and modern cloud infrastructure, we aim to unlock faster, smarter, and fairer pricing - creating real impact for both our customers and the business.

About the Price Optimisation team:

We're seeking bright, ambitious individuals eager to make a meaningful impact and accelerate their growth. You'll be supported by experienced leaders in retail pricing and data science who are deeply committed to your development and success.

As a lean, hands-on team, we offer a unique opportunity to take on responsibility early, drive real change, and grow alongside the business.

Joining us at this early stage means you'll help shape our innovation roadmap and team culture that's centered around technical excellence, commercial impact, and delivering real value to our customers.

Your day to day:

• Behavioural and Profitability Models:

Develop and maintaincustomer lifetime value (CLTV) and price sensitivity models, to support informed pricing decisions and long-term business performance.

• Price Optimisation:

Own and deliver pricing optimisation processes, including regular Efficient Frontier modelling and customer outcome simulations, to identify the optimal balance between volume, price, and contribution.

• Innovation and Advanced Analytics:

Champion continuous improvement by introducing advanced analytics techniques, machine learning approaches, and modern pricing tools.

• ML Engineering Integration:

Partner with ML Engineering to elevate model sophistication, overseeing integration with Radar API and ensuring smooth MLOps deployment pipelines.

• Leadership & Mentoring:

Support and mentor junior analysts, sharing knowledge and promoting best practices across the team.

Who are you:

We know we have high expectations, so please don't worry if you don't tick all the boxes, you'll certainly learn on the job!

Essential

• MSc or PhD, or equivalent experience in a quantitative field

• Deep theoretical knowledge of statistical methods and ML algorithms and their practical applications.

• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python, especially with core ML libraries (e.g. scikit-learn, XGBoost, SciPy, PyTorch)

• Extensive hands-on experience in taking advanced statistical/ML solutions from prototype to production and delivering high-impact outcomes to complex business problems

• Proactive technical leader with a strong bias for innovation and continuous improvement, driven to challenge the status quo and deliver meaningful change end-to-end

• Excellent communication and stakeholder skills, with the ability to present technical insights clearly to non-technical audiences

Nice-to-have

• Familiarity with MLOps and development best practice, including production-grade model design and deployment, version control (e.g. Git), code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, unit testing, and collaborative workflows such as Agile.

• Experience with optimisation techniques (e.g. gradient descent, Bayesian methods, Lagrangian methods etc) and their practical application

• Experience in UK General Insurance (Motor and/or Home), with a solid understanding of pricing principles and regulatory governance.

• Familiarity with pricing/modelling software: e.g. Emblem, Radar, or Earnix

• Proficiency using cloud technologies (e.g. AWS/GCP/Azure)

Benefits:

This role will be based in our London office in a 50/50 Hybrid mode

We match your pension contributions up to 7%

Private medical & Dental cover

Learning budget of £1,000 a year + Study leave (with encouragement to use it)

Enhanced maternity & paternity

Travel season ticket loan

Access to a wide selection of London O2 events and use of a Private Lounge

Employee Wellbeing Programme

Prayer room in Office

What We Stand for and Next Steps "We pride ourselves on being an equal opportunity employer. We treat all applications equally and recruit based solely on an individual's skills, knowledge, and experience. The quality and growing diversity of our team is a testament to this commitment"

At Policy Expert, we are committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for all candidates. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the interview process to accommodate your needs, please do not hesitate to let us know. We are dedicated to ensuring every candidate has an equal opportunity to succeed and will work with you to provide the necessary support.

We aim to be in touch within 14 working days of your application - you will be notified if successful or unsuccessful. Please be encouraged to apply even if you do not meet all the requirements.

Useful links:

Glassdoor | Trust Pilot