Senior Data Scientist

Overview

Role: Senior Data Scientist
Location: Oxford, Harwell - Hybrid
Role ID: 2026-3290
Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world. Ricardo, member of WSP, is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

The Role

We are seeking a highly skilled Data Scientist with substantial Data Engineering capabilities to design, build, and deploy advanced analytical solutions. This hybrid role is ideal for a professional who is equally comfortable developing machine learning models, engineering robust data pipelines, and contributing to the broader technical architecture. The successful candidate will apply advanced analytical techniques, work with complex and large-scale datasets, collaborate with cross-functional teams, and support the development of high-quality data infrastructure enabling reliable, scalable data-driven decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, validate, and deploy sophisticated predictive and statistical models using modern Python-based libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Conduct detailed exploratory data analysis, statistical modelling, hypothesis testing, and insight generation to support strategic business decisions.
• Develop high-quality, interpretable data visualisations using Matplotlib, Seaborn, and similar tools.
• Translate complex analytical outcomes into clear, actionable insights for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Mentor junior team members and contribute to best-practice analytical approaches.

• Design and implement robust, scalable data orchestration pipelines using tools such as Airflow or Dagster.
• Work with big data technologies (Spark, Hadoop, Dask) to process and analyse large-scale datasets efficiently.
• Define and implement data models using ER diagrams, normalisation techniques (e.g., star schema, Snowflake), and modern ORM frameworks (e.g., SQLAlchemy).
• Provision, administer, and optimise relational databases, including schema design, indexing, and access management.
• Build high-performance APIs using frameworks such as FastAPI or Flask, following best RESTful design practices.

• Develop modular, maintainable, object-oriented Python code using advanced design patterns and testing practices (CI/CD, unit tests, code reviews).
• Containerise and deploy applications using Docker and Kubernetes; support infrastructure provisioning through Infrastructure-as-Code tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).
• Contribute to system architecture discussions, microservices design, and integration with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure).

• Work collaboratively across technical and non-technical teams to embed data-driven decision-making.
• Lead or support large-scale analytical or data engineering projects, ensuring adherence to best practices in code quality, reproducibility, and documentation.
• Provide mentorship, guidance, and support to colleagues, fostering a culture of learning and excellence.

• Python programming expertise, including functions, classes, modules, packages, and advanced OOP features.
• Strong statistical knowledge (degree-level or equivalent).
• Demonstrable experience in machine learning model development and evaluation.
• Proficiency with relational databases and database design.
• Experience designing and maintaining data pipelines and big-data processing workflows.
• Familiarity with containerisation, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience deploying models and data pipelines into production environments.
• Strong understanding of data modelling, APIs, and software engineering best practices.

• Strong problem-solving ability, capable of resolving ambiguous or complex analytical challenges.
• Ability to communicate complex technical topics clearly to diverse stakeholders.
• Advocates for high-quality software development practices.
• Comfortable mentoring team members and leading aspects of project delivery.
• Effective collaborator with cross-functional teams.

• Experience with microservice architectures.
• Knowledge of cloud cost optimisation and resource management.
• Ability to configure and interpret monitoring and alerting systems.
• Familiarity with data ethics, governance, and privacy best practices.

• Degree in a quantitative field (e.g., Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Economics, Data Science) or equivalent industry experience
• Evidence of continued professional development in data science, data engineering, or cloud technologies.

You will be warmly welcomed into our workplace where every voice matters. We are diverse thinkers and doers, coming together to create a culture of inclusion. We will support you to find your place. We will encourage you to use your passion and expertise to make a positive impact through the projects you work on. Your knowledge and desire to bring about change will be invaluable in helping deliver innovative solutions that support communities across the globe in becoming safer and more sustainable.

Work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that is working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We\'re happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential.

Benefits

We want you to know how much you are valued. Your remuneration and benefits package will reflect that. You will receive a range of benefits which include support for your physical and mental health.

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person\'s potential, and we\'ll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a \"disability confident\" employer.

Next steps

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date. Ricardo is a Disability confident employer please advise the recruitment team via if you require any adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process.