{"id":714006,"url":"https://alion.io/job/optimapartners-head-of-data-science","title":"Head of Data Science","company":{"id":678916,"name":"Optima Partners","domain":"optimapartners.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/optimapartners","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Teamtailor","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":87,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.333,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":84,"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Edinburgh, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":102000,"max_usd":192000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":71},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-05-27T08:40:08Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-05-27","last_verified_at":"2026-11-05T18:46:10Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":162,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":[],"days_open":161},"description":"Optima Partners is a fast-growing professional services firm helping leading organisations transform customer engagement at the intersection of marketing, technology and data. As we scale from 100 to 300 people we’re growing our Advanced Data Practice team through the appointment of a Head of Data Science to drive both client impact and team growth\nAbout the role\nIn this role you will shape and deliver the data science agenda ensuring machine learning and analytics solutions are not only technically robust but deliver real measurable business outcomes for clients. You will sit at the intersection of strategy delivery and leadership building a high performing team while helping clients unlock value from advanced data and decisioning.\nWhat you will be doing\nLead and grow a multi-disciplinary data science team including data scientists and analysts\n\nDefine and embed a best practice operating model for scalable and commercially viable data science solutions\n\nProvide technical oversight and delivery assurance across client projects\n\nSupport business development by shaping solutions contributing to proposals and engaging with clients\n\nPartner with delivery teams and engagement managers to establish consistent ways of working and repeatable approaches\n\nDrive adoption of machine learning solutions ensuring sustained client value\n\nBuild strong relationships with partners such as Databricks Pega and Adobe and contribute to client account growth\n\nLine manage team members supporting performance development and wellbeing\n\nContribute to recruitment strategy and scaling the data science capability\n\nWhat we are looking for\nProven experience leading data science teams ideally within a consulting or client facing environment\n\nStrong expertise in machine learning advanced analytics and statistical modelling\n\nExperience delivering data science solutions in commercial environments with measurable impact\n\nAbility to translate complex business problems into data modelling and decisioning solutions\n\nStrong understanding of modern data science tooling and ecosystems such as Python R SQL MLOps and Databricks\n\nCommercial awareness with the ability to identify and shape high value use cases\n\nExcellent stakeholder engagement skills including working with senior and C suite clients\n\nAbout you\nStrategic outcome focused and commercially minded\n\nA natural leader coach and mentor who enjoys developing others\n\nCollaborative and comfortable working across multi disciplinary teams\n\nPragmatic with a focus on delivery adoption and impact over theory\n\nA strong communicator able to bridge technical and business stakeholders\n\nPassionate about building a high performing people first data science culture\n\nWhy join Optima\nAt Optima Partners we combine customer strategy design and advanced data science to help leading brands unlock real business value. You will play a key role in shaping our data science capability and growth working with major UK and global clients across financial services telecoms energy and life sciences.\nThis is an opportunity to join a fast growing consultancy influence our leadership team and build a data science function that sets the standard for delivery and innovation.\nWhat we offer\nCompetitive salary plus 15% discretionary bonus\n\nHybrid working with regular office presence\n\nPrivate medical insurance life and income protection\n\nPension scheme\n\nAccess to a wide range of employee perks\n\nContinuous learning training and career development\n\nOpportunity to shape and grow a high impact data science practice","description_format":"text","description_chars":3548,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning","Health insurance","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":[],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-11T05:29:22Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"GB","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Licensed UK visa sponsor (Skilled Worker)","filings_12m":null,"filings_prev_12m":null,"green_card_filings_12m":null,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":"Skilled Worker","cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-05T06:29:30+00:00","sources":["UK Home Office: register of licensed sponsors (workers)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":22,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.599,"p_room":0.36,"age_days":161,"expected_fill_days":84,"reasons":["conf:5","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/optimapartners-head-of-data-science","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/optimapartners-head-of-data-science.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T23:35:11Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4952,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":678916},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=678916"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Foptimapartners-head-of-data-science"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Foptimapartners-head-of-data-science"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Foptimapartners-head-of-data-science"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/optimapartners-head-of-data-science\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Foptimapartners-head-of-data-science"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":714006}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"optimapartners.co.uk","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":714006},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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