Department seeks leader for ‘largest data science team in government’
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The Home Office is offering a salary of up to £75,000 in its bid to recruit a head of data science.
The successful candidate will lead a team of 30 people – whom the department claims collectively constitute “the largest centralised data science team in central government”. The role also comes with a remit to manage “a pool of specialist consultancy resource”.
The postholder will assume ultimate accountability for direction and performance of the organisation’s data science function, and the team they will lead “sits at the heart of the Home Office’s transformation into a data-driven department”.
The data science unit is typically engaged in between six and 10 projects at any given time, the Home Office said.
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Work currently being undertaken by the unit includes the creation of a machine-learning tool “to classify visa applications by risk”, and an initiative dedicated to “using network analytics to identify organised crime”.
The Home Office is also engaged in a project concerned with “deploying text analytics to help the department get greater and earlier insight from across the widest range of unstructured data”.
“The team is also focused on developing reusable capability and continually enhancing the range of analytics that we can offer to the department,” the job advert said “There are currently capability teams covering machine learning, text analytics, graph analytics, data matching, enrichment and data visualisation, feature engineering and technology exploitation – including the move to cloud.”
Applications for the post are open until 11.55pm on 5 December.
