Job details

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers. As such, we operate on a scale that is almost unmatched anywhere in Europe and most people in Britain come into contact with us at some point in their lives.

Working with DWP, you will be helping us to drive our priorities to:

• Run an effective welfare system that enables people to achieve financial independence by providing assistance and guidance into employment
• Increase saving for, and security in later life
• Create a fair and affordable welfare system which improves the life chances of children
• Deliver outstanding services to our customers and claimants
• Deliver efficiently: transform the way we deliver our services to reduce costs and increase productivity

Data scientists working on Universal Credit are embedded in multi-disciplinary product development teams. 

• These product teams design and build new features for the Universal Credit digital service.
• Data scientists are expected to use their understanding of the databases underpinning the service in combination with a variety of data science techniques to ensure the product teams make decisions based on evidence.

In this particular role, the data scientist would be embedded in a product development team responsible for 'Move to UC'.

• Move to UC is a programme of work to migrate people who are claiming 'legacy benefits' onto Universal Credit.
• More information about the programme of work is available here: https://ucmove.campaign.gov.uk/

Work in this role will be commissioned by the Product Manager in the Move to UC product development team. It will vary depending on the feature that the team are building.

You’ll have relevant experience in:

• Ability to translate user requirements into data requirements, data models, and other data solutions.
• Good analytical and communication skills.
• Programming/Scripting skills – e.g., SQL, Python/R, Shell (bash)
• Databases and distributed data processing e.g., Hive SQL, Hadoop, Spark, MongoDB, Splunk
• Practical experience of manipulating big data.
• Code Management and Version Control e.g., Git
• Processing a variety of data formats e.g., CSV, JSON
• Documenting technical processes in plain English.

If this role sounds like something that you would be interested in, please click the link to apply or get in touch with rebecca.nolan@publicsectorresourcing.co.uk

Disability confident

As a member of the disability confident scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group.

If you qualify for the above, please notify us on PSRapplications@publicsectorresourcing.co.uk.

We will be in touch to discuss your suitability and arrange your Guaranteed Interview.

Should you require reasonable adjustments at any point during the recruitment process or if there is a more accessible way for us to communicate, please do let me know.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following, this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.