Data Scientist

UCAS is at the heart of connecting people to higher education.

UCAS is the world’s leading shared admissions service for higher education. We provide application services for UK universities and colleges as well as delivering a wide range of research, consultancy and advisory services to schools, colleges, careers services, professional bodies and employers.

We’re a successful and fast-growing organisation, which helps hundreds of thousands of people every year. We're committed to delivering a first-class service to all of our customers — they're at the heart of everything we do.

Digital Delivery

The Digital Delivery business unit runs UCAS’ day-to-day frontline services, digital products and technical infrastructure for all customers, including applicants and providers. The unit is also responsible for developing and improving customer-centric products in close collaboration with UCAS’ product function.

Services to customers include the Customer Experience Centre, providing comprehensive high quality services to support applicants in their journey into university and other higher education provision. Digital Delivery is responsible for running UCAS’ Confirmation and Clearing service, and logistics related to key deadlines in the cycle.

Working in cross-company multi-disciplinary teams comprising customer insight, product managers, architects, developers, testers, and data scientists, the Digital Delivery business unit ensures that UCAS is a customer-centric, product-focused digital business, connecting students with their next opportunity.

To utilize data science and analysis techniques to develop and run UCAS’ Surveys data service for internal and external stakeholders. To support the service to run smoothly, providing valuable, timely insight by developing techniques and implementing data processing pipelines to efficiently analyse response data, as well as supporting stakeholders by offering expert question writing advice. The team work with internal and external customers, creating insight into the UK Higher Education sector and student trends, supporting both charity and commercial projects.

Key accountabilities:

• To contribute to, and at times be responsible for, the smooth and efficient running of UCAS’ survey data services.

• Maintain and enhance codes essential to the smooth running of an operational survey service.

• Work within a team to design and develop sophisticated new data tools and functionality.

• Liaise with internal and external stakeholders to design surveys to fit customer needs, advising on the most appropriate methods to obtain the desired insights for a variety of purposes, including sector insights, customer feedback, and marketing.

• Design and develop new surveys products and services, as part of a small and agile data science team.

• To derive new and valuable insights from data and communicate these effectively to decision makers.

Please refer to the attached role profile for further information about this role.

Essential:

•  Bachelor’s degree (or higher) in a numerate discipline, such as mathematics, statistics, computer science, operational research, data science, or a related field.

• Good working knowledge of at least one statistical programming language such as Python, R, or SAS, and the ability to write readable, efficient code. Ability and willingness to quickly reach a working level in SAS, if not already familiar, is essential for this role.

•  Ability to communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders from both technical and non-technical backgrounds.

• A desire to combine the power of surveys and data science for public good, and to generate revenue to improve our admissions services.

In addition, we would look for the role holder to have experience of at least two of the following skills, and the aptitude and desire to learn in post:

•  Experience of drafting surveys for at least one of the following purposes: sector research, customer insight, marketing.

• A working understanding of the data manipulation and interpretations challenges specific to working with surveys data.

• Experience of displaying data through standardised dashboards, preferably in PowerBI.

• Previous experience of data manipulation, identifying trends and drawing conclusions from data.

• Experience of developing, testing, and deploying statistical, numerical and/or machine-learning models would.

Salary - up to £30000 

• 30(!)days annual leave,(plus 3 concessionary days over Christmas and your bank holidays!)

• Flexibility – UCAS positively supports Hybrid working for its employees, meaning you can work between home and the office in a way that suits you and the business and also has a comprehensive Flexible Working Policy

• A generous pension scheme

• Hundreds of high street discounts and offers with Perkbox

• Internal training and development

• Subsidised gym and café

• Be rewarded for going above and beyond with our ex-gratia bonus scheme and Celebrating U, our quarterly employee recognition scheme