Behavioural Data Scientist Graduate

Discovery Limited; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 320,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Discovery Health is seeking a Behavioural Data Scientist Graduate in Johannesburg or Cape Town. You will apply data science to real-world health data, exploring behavioural patterns across Health App, HealthID, and DHCS, with cross-functional teams to translate questions into measurable insights.

The role requires foundational Python/R/SQL skills and familiarity with data preparation, ML basics, and data visualization tools like Power BI or Tableau.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in data science or related analytics field.
• Basic experience in Python, R or SQL.
• Knowledge of Power BI or Tableau is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Apply real data science to health-care datasets across the Digital team to inform insights.
• Translate business questions into analysis and present findings to stakeholders.
• Work with large-scale behavioural data to uncover patterns and impact decisions.

Skills

Python

R

SQL

Education

Bachelor’s degree in data science / analytics

Tools

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

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Behavioural Data Scientist Graduate

Business Unit: Discovery Health

Function: Graduate

Date: 2 Oct 2026

Discovery - Digital and DHCS

Behavioural Data Scientist Graduate (Johannesburg OR Cape Town)

About Discovery

Discovery’s core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. We seek out and invest in exceptional individuals who understand and support our core purpose, and whose own values align with those of Discovery. Our fast-paced and dynamic environment enables smart, self-driven people to be their best. As global thought leaders, Discovery is passionate about innovating in order to not only achieve financial success, but to ignite positive and meaningful change within our society.

Key Purpose

The successful applicant will be responsible for but not limited to the following job functions:

• We’re looking for analytically curious graduates eager to apply real data science to real-world impact within the Digital team, working across the Health App, HealthID, and Discovery Health Care Services businesses to leverage large-scale behavioural and transactional data and uncover meaningful patterns in member behaviour. From journey analytics and segmentation to experimentation and predictive modelling, we use advanced analytics to inform strategy, data-driven decision-making and insights into customer, product and department behaviour.
• You’ll work with rich data sets, modern tools, and cross-functional teams to solve complex problems — translating data into measurable outcomes. If you’re excited by messy data, human behaviour, and building models that influence decisions at scale, this is where you start.
• Basic statistics (regression, hypothesis testing)
• Data cleaning and manipulation
• Database knowledge (relational vs dimensional) (advantageous)

Data Science Fundamentals

• Understanding of machine learning basics
• Data preparation and data engineering fundamentals
• Supervised learning, unsupervised learning, natural language processing

Analytical Skills

• Structured problem-solving
• Logical thinking

Business & Communication

• Translate business questions into analysis
• Present insights clearly
• Behavioural Attributes
• Curiosity and willingness to learn
• Team player
• Accountability and ownership
• Autonomous
• Ambitious
• Quick learner

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in data science, Actuarial Science, Engineering: Industrial/Aeronautical/Mechanical, Statistics, Computer Science or Related Data Analytics Degree)
• Basic experience in Python, R or SQL

Advantageous/Preferred Experience and Knowledge:

• Honors/Masters
• Bacis experience or understanding in
• Power BI/Tableau

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY

The Company’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.