Data Scientist

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government — we are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

Data scientists in the GDS Product Group are at the forefront of applying AI to transform how users interact with government information and services. As part of a multidisciplinary team, we've developed GOV.UK Chat, a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) system that helps users ask questions in everyday language and get accurate answers from GOV.UK content. We're also working closely with the GOV.UK App team to explore novel applications of AI within the GOV.UK App.

Job description

Imagine helping millions of people access government services through cutting-edge AI. At GDS Product Group, you'll build AI systems that transform how citizens interact with government, working on groundbreaking projects like GOV.UK Chat and AI personalization in the GOV.UK App. You'll tackle complex challenges at massive scale, with your work directly impacting citizens nationwide. If you're passionate about using your data science expertise to create public good while pushing the boundaries of AI in government, this is your opportunity to make a difference.

As a Data Scientist you will:

• Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams including developers, user researchers, and designers to build AI products that meet user needs
• Identify efficient and effective ways to use advanced analytics, data science, AI and automation to tackle business and organisational challenges
• Lead technical tasks on projects involving data science, and together with delivery and product managers you'll define project scope
• Design comprehensive evaluation frameworks to measure and optimise LLM performance, implementing metrics for accuracy, user satisfaction, and efficiency while conducting "red team" exercises and building guardrails to prevent hallucinations and harmful outputs
• Help establish best practices for responsible AI development across government

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• Python programming skills: Ability to write production-ready python code for scalable AI products
• Strong foundation in data science: Experience with exploratory data analysis, statistical methods, and experimental design to evaluate AI systems
• Experience with large language models (LLMs): Practical experience working with LLMs like GPT-4, Claude or open-source alternatives, including prompt engineering and evaluation
• Cloud deployment experience: Familiarity with deploying and scaling AI systems in cloud environments (AWS, Azure or GCP etc.)
• Evaluation and metrics: An awareness of evaluation frameworks for AI systems, including accuracy, relevance, and user satisfaction metrics
• Collaborative approach: Ability to work effectively in multidisciplinary teams, explaining complex technical concepts to non-technical colleagues

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £56,070, Government Digital Service contributes £16,243 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• paid volunteering leave
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

Things you need to know

Selection process details

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• A simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and for you to answer 3 application questions.

• a 75 minute video interview. In advance of the interview you will be sent a technical task to complete, this will include a coding exercise and preparation for a presentation at interview. Full details of the presentation task will be provided to shortlist candidates prior to interview.

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• working together
• changing and improving
• developing self and others
• communicating and influencing
• delivering at pace

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Digital, Data and Technology Profession Capability Framework for the Data Scientist role:

• Applied maths, statistics and scientific practices
• Data engineering
• Data science innovation
• Delivering business impact
• Developing data science capability
• Ethics and privacy (data science)
• Programming and build (data science)
• Understanding product delivery

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status.

Other information

In January 2025, it was announced that the Government Digital Service (GDS) will move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a part of a machinery of government change. This change aims to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one central department, presenting exciting opportunities and positioning DSIT to lead the government’s digital agenda.

This role is in scope to transfer to DSIT when the machinery of government change takes place.  As a result,  if you are successful and appointed by Cabinet Office to this role before 1st June 2025, your role will transfer from Cabinet Office to DSIT at the time of the relevant machinery of government change taking place,.  If your start date is after 1 June 2025, you will be appointed direct to DSIT and your appointment will be unaffected by the machinery of government change.  We are currently consulting with our Trade Unions on which policies, terms and conditions will apply on transfer.  The statement of changes applied to all other Cabinet Office staff will also apply to you if you are successful.”

We encourage you to apply and look forward to reviewing your application. We will keep you updated throughout the process.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.