Band: 8c ( £70,417 – £81,183 inclusive of HCAS)
Contract: Fixed-term, 12 months. Part time role, 15-22.5 hours per week
Location: Hybrid working with office at, Ferguson House, 15 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5JD
Closing date: 3 June, 2026
Interview date: 1 July, 2026
Job summary
Imperial College Health Partners (ICHP) is seeking an experienced Principal Data Scientist to provide senior technical leadership across our growing real-world evidence (RWE) portfolio. We are seeking someone who can build a QA/QC and technical assurance framework from first principles–anchored in strong data architecture and process–to enable the delivery of top-tier, defensible analytical products.
Join Imperial College Health Partners as a Principal Data Scientist and contribute to delivering on our mission to improve population health in North West London
About Imperial College Health Partners (ICHP)
ICHP is a partnership organisation bringing together healthcare providers and universities across North West London. We work collaboratively across our health and research ecosystem in NWL and with industry partners to deliver innovation in practice.
Our goals:
- Health: a healthier population, enabled by a systematic focus on prevention, detection and treatment of disease
- Growth: a vibrant UK economy driven by a productive population and thriving healthcare and life sciences industry
- Service: a sustainable health and care service that delivers high quality care for all citizens
Our priorities:
- Create: cultivate the best conditions for the end-to-end testing and scaling of innovation
- Advance: data-driven change, harnessing our capabilities and assets across the lifecycle
- Sustain: support our members with the problems of today, enabling an NHS Fit for the Future
- Shape: the future of health through investments in advanced technologies and funding models
ICHP delivers analytical and real‑world evidence (RWE) services to system partners, researchers and commercial clients, drawing on assets including Discover, a depersonalised longitudinal dataset covering over 2.9 million people.
In this role, you will act as a senior technical authority, shaping and assuring complex analytical work that informs decision‑making across health systems, research and innovation partners. You will lead the development of analytical and data engineering standards, support the evolution of ICHP’s RWE offer, and provide hands‑on technical input to priority and high‑risk projects. For example, large‑scale linkage of NHS data with non‑healthcare sources (e.g. HMRC or Department for Education datasets), and the development or evaluation of machine‑learning models intended to inform clinical or operational decision‑making. These projects require advanced governance, reproducibility, explainability and senior technical assurance to ensure defensible, regulator‑ready outputs.
This is a specialist role without formal line management responsibility, operating through expertise, credibility and collaboration. You will work closely with the Associate Director of Strategy & Insights and the Senior Quantitative Insights Manager (RWE), influencing how real‑world data is used safely, rigorously and effectively to improve population health.
We welcome applications from candidates with diverse backgrounds. We are particularly interested in candidates with experience delivering high‑quality analytics in regulated environments such as healthcare, academia, public sector or other data‑intensive industries.
Main Responsibilities
In this role, you will:
- Provide senior technical oversight and quality assurance across complex or high‑risk analytical projects, acting as final technical reviewer where required.
- Lead the development and continuous improvement of ICHP’s real‑world evidence standards, including analytical pipelines, data engineering, reproducibility and QA/QC.
- Provide hands‑on technical input to priority projects, advising on feasibility, data preparation, linkage approaches, and reproducible delivery.
- Ensure all analytical work complies with Five Safes principles, governance and disclosure control requirements.
- Act as a visible technical leader, sharing best practice, supporting capability building and contributing to a culture of continuous improvement.
Essential skills, experience and qualifications
- Advanced capability in R and/or Python, with working knowledge of the other.
- Significant experience delivering complex analytical work using large administrative or longitudinal datasets, including reproducible, version‑controlled pipelines.
- Strong experience providing technical leadership, assurance and governance‑aware delivery in healthcare or other regulated environments.
- Experience setting and upholding standards for data engineering, documentation, QA/QC and safe analytical outputs.
Interview & dates
Interviews will take place on Friday 26 June and a task will form a part of the assessment process.
Information Prior to Interview
We understand that you may wish to discuss the role and organisation with the recruiting manager and/or those who work here as part of the preparation for your application. To enable this, and as part of our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, rather than offer individual calls, a Webinar has been scheduled for 26 May via this link(https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/386701654070218?p=to9tT0HknjfpnJijL4), which will enable all prospective applicants to join and ask any questions they may have at the same time. This webinar will be recorded, and can be shared with applicants who may not be able to make time scheduled time and date.
Should there be any specific questions that are felt not to be appropriate for the webinar as they are as they are in relation to individual/personal circumstances, they can be submitted via email to the recruiting manager in advance of the webinar.
ICHP reserves the right to close the application window early in line with significant interest in the role.