Phd jobs in United Kingdom

Who we are

Our mission is to transform how healthcare organisations work together with their workforce. Our Connected Scheduling™ platform connects healthcare organisations and their staff giving them more autonomy and control on how and when they work. Over 50% of UK GP practices use Lantum, and over 30% of UK hospitals rely on Lantum workforce products. We have developed a completely new approach to scheduling staff using AI to balance the vast amounts of complexities in workforce scheduling and we have seen game‑changing results. We have not only saved millions for the NHS, but we have countless stories of how we have improved the lives of clinicians who, for the first time, are able to plan their work lives around their personal lives.

What sets us apart is not only our leading edge technology and approach to innovation, it’s our culture and our strength of mission. Our incredible team is the driving force behind our success and this propels our competitive edge. We are diverse (10+ nationalities and 53% female workforce), we are authentic and true to ourselves, we are creative and focused and we work hard together to change our industry. Our team is supported to deliver their best work with clear career progression and a strong feedback culture.

We have a bright and modern office which you can work from throughout the week and 3 core office days per week (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday) where the whole team comes together.

About the role

This role strengthens the core of our AI scheduling engine. You will build and optimise the models that power Connected Scheduling, improve our internal data science capability, and work closely with engineering to deliver fast, accurate and reliable solving at scale.

Responsibilities

• Build, optimise, and maintain production‑grade AI models for complex rota scheduling
• Improve data pipelines, workflows, and experimentation processes to enhance model reliability
• Collaborate with engineering to embed AI into core product workflows
• Apply scientific best practice to ensure accuracy, fairness and compliance across all models

About You - We’ll be looking for

General

Our ideal candidate is an individual who has:

• Strong end‑to‑end data science skills with experience deploying models into production
• Deep expertise in Python, ML frameworks, optimisation methods and cloud engineering
• A scientific, hypothesis‑driven mindset with high attention to accuracy and rigour
• Ability to work with messy real‑world data and design robust solutions
• Clear communicator who can work effectively with engineering and product teams

Education and Training

Our ideal candidate is an individual who has:

• A degree (Masters and/or PhD preferred but not required) in a numerical field such as mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science, engineering or another STEM‑oriented subject
• Demonstrable experience in delivering production‑grade code
• Some formal training in (or comparable deep practical exposure to) descriptive statistics, probability, inferential statistics, software development and general data science fundamentals.

Technical Experience

An ideal candidate has demonstrable skills and experience in the following technologies.

Required (ideally most of the following):

• The wider Python (3) data science stack and ecosystem (such as Pandas, NumPy, Jupyter notebooks, SciPy, FastAPI, Flask, Matplotlib and similar)
• Core ML and DL frameworks (such as PyTorch (strongly preferred), Keras, TensorFlow, scikit‑learn and similar)
• Cloud compute, infrastructure, services and deployment wrt. end‑to‑end data science (ideally AWS (such as S3, EC2, Lambda, ECR, ECS))
• Data visualisation methods and tools (such as Matplotlib, Bokeh or Seaborn)
• CI/CD
• Git
• An appreciation for solid coding practices

Prior exposure to or interest in some of the following is highly beneficial:

• Constraint/constrained optimisation and programming (particularly using metaheuristics for scheduling problems) in relation to both practical solvers and formal theory
• OptaPlanner/TimeFold or Google OR‑Tools
• Basic containerisation via Docker
• MLOps platforms, services and tools (such as DVC, MLflow, SageMaker or Weights & Biases)
• Agentic applications and/or conversational interfaces
• SQL and relational DBs (such as Postgres, Aurora or Athena)
• No‑SQL DBs (such as MongoDB)
• Java

• Talent Screen: We’ll book you in for a quick introductory chat, and to answer any initial questions you might have.
• Meet your manager: We’ll book you in for a first interview with your potential future manager, so you can learn more about the role and we get a deeper understanding of your experience.
• Technical Interview – Pair Coding: We’ll have some fun working on a practical and relevant problem together. We’re particularly keen to understand how you approach writing code and the way you think about a problem. You’ll be provided with a brief the day before so will have a limited time to prepare.
• Values Interview: You’ll meet more members of the team to talk about the Lantum Values. This will be an opportunity for them to ask competency questions and also the chance for you to ask questions about life at Lantum.

🖥️ Home office set up – £200 stipend towards home office equipment to support remote working.

💆♀️ Health Cash Plan:

• Cash refunds for physio, dental and other health related costs.
• An Employee Pricing Program that grants you access to special, non‑public discounts to gyms and top retail brands.
• Plus access to a 24/7 counselling and support helpline.

🧓 Pension – Lantum matches 4% of your salary into your pension pot.

🌴 Holiday – 25 days holiday + 1 additional day of birthday leave.

🧠 Wellbeing Support – Access to Spill, a mental health support app and 1 day wellbeing leave.

🌱 £500 Learning and development budget each year to drive your own development.

🚲 Cycle to Work Scheme.

🎗 Charity Day – the opportunity to make a positive impact in our community.

🏠 Hybrid Working: Spend three core days a week in our collaborative WeWork office

🌈 Vibrant Workspace: A dynamic, fun WeWork office space with amenities to support your productivity and well‑being

We want every employee to live the core values of the business:

• More than me: Our goals are too big to achieve on our own, it takes diverse skills and various people to achieve greatness.
• Care a lot: Doing the right thing isn’t optional. We care a lot about our users, the NHS and each other. We hold each other to the highest standards and earn our reputation every day.
• See it thru: We’re constantly looking for excellence. We take pride in planning and execution of all types of work, and we’re not deterred by bumps in the road or adversity. When we see obstacles, we relish the challenge and keep going.
• Think around corners: We always stay ahead of the curve. All of us share a responsibility to challenge the status quo, think outside the box, turn problems on their head and turn weaknesses into strengths.
• Bounce back & learn: Being brave, taking risks and trying new things. It’s better to take risks and learn from them and being open to changing from what you learned is what makes us successful.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK. We are unable to sponsor visas for this position.

We believe that a great workplace is one that represents the world we live in and how beautifully diverse it can be. That means we have no judgement when it comes to any one of the things that make you who you are. Everyone is welcome — as an inclusive workplace, our employees are comfortable bringing their authentic whole selves to work. Be you. All you need is a passion and a desire to be part of our mission.