Data Scientist

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Business area: Value for Money Audit

Location London, Newcastle

Salary: £55,000- £68,000 (London), £44,500 - £61,900 (Newcastle)

Type of contract:: Permanent

Main Purpose of the job:

The National Audit Office (NAO) supports Parliament to hold the government to account for the way public services are delivered. Our primary role is to scrutinise public spending for Parliament. We do this by certifying over 350 government accounts and produce around 65 Value for Money (VFM) reports each year.

In this role we will expect you to spend most of your time applying strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills to build and implement analytical tools to support our range of assurance work. For example, take a look at the data visualisations presented on our website: https://www.nao.org.uk/data-visualisations/

You will join our Data Analytics Research Team, working with a team of data analysts and data scientists to develop and deliver analytical tools for our financial audit practice, alongside ad-hoc support for our VFM teams. Supervision of junior staff and some project management of analytical projects is expected, along with delivery of training, and review and quality assurance of work completed.

Required competencies include:

Education/work experience

A strong academic background; a University degree in Statistics, Applied Mathematics, Mathematics, Operational Research, Computer science, Engineering, Information Systems and/or equivalent formal training or work experience preferred.

A solid grounding in applied mathematics and statistics including expertise and practical experience of several of the following (or related) techniques: Bayesian modelling, multivariate regression, logistic regression, machine learning, cluster analysis, decision trees, time series analysis and forecasting, Principal Component Analysis, Neural Networks and Natural Language Processing are essential. Knowledge of accounting and auditing is desirable but not essential.

Abilities

Present complex data or other findings in a way which can be easily understood by the various audiences

Deliver insightful quantitative and qualitative analysis to challenging timescales

Design and develop quantitative models

Attributes

Intellectual curiosity, especially about using data, models and evidence to answer questions

Experience with programming languages, preferably R or Python

Experience with Git

You must be a UK, Commonwealth, EEA or Swiss national to comply with Civil Service nationality rules and must hold a valid work permit. We are not able to sponsor work visas.

Recruitment Process:

To apply candidates should provide an up to date CV and covering letter setting out briefly why they are suitable for this role. The cover letter should also provide a sample of code that they have written (e.g. via Github or Gitlab).

The closing date for applications is Friday 3rd August 2018, 12pm.

Successful candidates from the sifting stage will be invited for a face-to-face interview which also includes a task (details will be forwarded to interview candidates).

Full details of the responsibilities and required competencies can be found in the job description on our website.

Click apply now to view the full job description and apply!

Interview dates: Interviews will take place on weeks commencing 5th and 16th August.