Senior Lead Data & AI Scientist

Lloyds Bank plc; Manchester; On-site; GBP 93,000 - 109,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension 15%

Annual bonus

Share schemes

Discounted shopping

30 days holiday

Wellbeing initiatives

Job summary

Lloyds Bank plc in Manchester seeks a Senior Lead Data & AI Scientist to shape and deliver cutting-edge AI solutions that empower customers and colleagues. You will lead across predictive AI, generative AI and intelligent agent tech, driving responsible governance and scalable deployment.

You will collaborate with product, engineering and data teams to set strategy, mentor engineers, and advance the AI capability across the platform while maintaining regulatory standards.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in developing, tuning and evaluating ML models in production.
• Deep understanding of modern ML techniques, deployment, monitoring and optimization.
• Strong capability building production-ready services using Python, SQL and modern engineering practices.
• Experience providing technical leadership across complex, multi-team deliveries.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to stakeholders.
• Experience in finance or regulated environments is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development and optimization of AI/ML solutions addressing business challenges.
• Own end-to-end AI lifecycle from experimentation to deployment and monitoring.
• Provide technical leadership across multi-team programs and architectures.
• Partner with product, engineering, data and business teams to deliver scalable AI products.
• Embed responsible AI, governance and risk practices throughout development and deployment.
• Coach and develop data scientists and AI engineers to grow capability.

Skills

Data Science

Machine Learning

Software Engineering

Technology Leadership

Critical Thinking

Stakeholder Management

Tools

Python

SQL

APIs

Event-driven architectures

Microservices

Job description

End Date Wednesday 02 September 2026 Salary Range £92,701 - £109,060 We support flexible working – click here for more information on flexible working options Flexible Working Options Hybrid Working, Job Share Job Description Summary . Job Description

JOB TITLE: Senior Lead Data & AI Scientist

SALARY:£92,701 - £108,000

LOCATION(S): Manchester

HOURS: Full Time

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of your time, at one of our office sites.

About this opportunity

Do you want to shape how AI, machine learning and agentic technologies improve the financial wellbeing of millions of customers? As a Senior Lead Data Scientist and AI & Machine Learning Engineer within our Financial Wellbeing Platform, you'll play a leading role in defining and delivering innovative AI solutions that help colleagues and customers make better financial decisions. You'll work across predictive AI, generative AI and intelligent agent technologies, combining deep technical expertise with strategic leadership to deliver solutions safely, responsibly and at scale! You'll help define our AI capability roadmap, influence technical direction across multiple teams and support the growth of data science and AI engineering capability across the Platform! This is an opportunity to work with talented colleagues, solve meaningful problems and influence how AI is applied at enterprise scale. You'll join a collaborative environment where learning, innovation and continuous improvement are encouraged, and where you'll have the opportunity to make a genuine impact through your work.

In this role, you’ll:

• Lead the design, development and optimisation of AI and machine learning solutions that address complex business challenges.
• Own delivery across the end-to-end AI lifecycle, from experimentation and model development through to deployment, monitoring and continuous improvement.
• Provide technical leadership across large, multi-team programmes, helping teams make sound engineering and architectural decisions.
• Partner with product, engineering, data and business teams to deliver scalable AI-powered products and services.
• Embed responsible AI, governance and risk management practices throughout development and deployment activities.
• Coach and develop data scientists and AI engineers, supporting capability growth and knowledge sharing across the wider organisation.

Why Lloyds Banking Group?

Like the modern Britain we serve, we're evolving. Investing in our people, data and technology to transform how we support customers and communities. We're growing our AI and machine learning capability to help shape the future of financial services.

What you’ll need

We're looking for someone who combines advanced data science expertise with software engineering capability and technical leadership experience. Specifically, we're interested in:

• Data Science: Extensive experience developing, tuning and evaluating machine learning models and AI solutions in production environments.
• Machine Learning: Deep understanding of modern machine learning techniques, model deployment, monitoring and optimisation practices.
• Software Engineering: Strong capability building production-ready services using Python, SQL and modern engineering practices, including APIs, event-driven architectures and microservices.
• Technology Leadership: Experience providing technical leadership across complex, multi-team deliveries, influencing strategy and enabling high-quality outcomes.
• Critical Thinking: Ability to solve complex problems, analyse information effectively and make informed decisions in ambiguous environments.
• Stakeholder Management: Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and build effective partnerships across engineering, product and business stakeholders.

These requirements reflect the role's focus on AI delivery, technical leadership, software engineering, machine learning and enterprise-scale data science capability. And any experience of this would be really useful.

Building agentic AI solutions, LLM-powered applications and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures.

Experience with Vertex AI Agent Builder, Agentspace, LangGraph or multi-agent frameworks.

Knowledge of responsible AI, model governance and risk management practices within regulated environments.

Experience working within financial services or other highly regulated industries.

Exposure to Azure, AWS or multi-cloud environments.

Building technical communities, mentoring programmes or engineering guilds.

About working for us

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion, supporting our customers, colleagues and communities.

We're committed to creating an environment where everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We welcome applications from people with a broad range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process and in the workplace to reduce or remove barriers.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role and have a disability, long-term health condition or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.

If you need any adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.

Benefits

• A generous pension contribution of up to 15%
• An annual performance-related bonus
• Share schemes including free shares
• Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping 30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top
• A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies

Ready for a career where you can help shape the future of AI in financial services while learning, growing and making a positive impact?

About Lloyds Banking Group

At Lloyds Banking Group, we're driven by a clear purpose; to help Britain prosper. Across the Group, our colleagues are focused on making a difference to customers, businesses and communities. With us you'll have a key role to play in shaping the financial services of the future, whilst the scale and reach of our Group means you'll have many opportunities to learn, grow and develop. We keep your data safe. So, we'll only ever ask you to provide confidential or sensitive information once you have formally been invited along to an interview or accepted a verbal offer to join us which is when we run our background checks. We'll always explain what we need and why, with any request coming from a trusted Lloyds Banking Group person. We're focused on creating a values-led culture and are committed to building a workforce which reflects the diversity of the customers and communities we serve. Together we’re building a truly inclusive workplace where all of our colleagues have the opportunity to make a real difference. With 320 years under our belt, we're used to change, and today is no different. Join us and help drive this change, shaping the future of finance whilst working at pace to deliver for our customers. Here, you'll do the best work of your career. Your impact will be amplified by our scale as you learn and develop, gaining skills for the future.

For more Flexible Working Options please use the free text search, e.g. job sharing, variable hours, to identify relevant matches.