Principal Data Scientist

Salary: £70,000 - £85,000

Aviva have an exciting opportunity for a Principal Data Scientist to work in a great team, leading on the delivery of innovative data science solutions into our Protection business! Insurance, Wealth and Retirement (IWR) is Aviva’s biggest business unit and the largest life insurer in the UK, holding a 23% share of the UK market. This role supports the Protection business – number 1 in the UK market – delivering solutions across pricing, trading, claims and underwriting and beyond.

The insurance industry is evolving in an age of rapid technological development, and as an organisation Aviva are investing in strengthening data, machine learning and analytics as a distinctive capability. The protection business has been evolving and developing its capabilities in this space for a number of years and has fantastic momentum to continue to develop further and maintain it as a differentiator.

 A bit about the job:

You will be working with highly supportive stakeholders across the Protection business to lead on the execution of innovative data science solutions to drive better business and customer outcomes.  Joining up with the business, its strategy, and its objectives - you will lead a team focussed on delivering solutions to support those objectives and exercise license to be creative in exploring new and innovative ways supporting the Protection business across it processes.

You will lead a team of c.8 motivated data scientists delivering across a range of capabilities as part of the IWR Data Science function, part of the Aviva Group “Quantum” data practice – where we value a diverse team and create a supportive environment to develop our people and their careers. 

The ideal candidate will also have experience of leading on designing, building, and implementing data science solutions within the Pricing & UW Analytics field.

Skills and experience we’re looking for:

• You will have significant experience of shaping and leading across problem definition, data acquisition & wrangling, modelling, feature engineering and deployment. Setting up a team to deliver collectively and at pace

• Highly numerate and/or educated to degree or postgraduate (MSc) in a field such as Mathematics, Statistics, Actuarial or Computer Science would be an advantage for this role. You will be able

• Excellent communication, management and stakeholder skills - able to communicate complex ideas in an understandable way often to non-specialists.

• Good commercial acumen skills and can think and act strategically. A knowledge of actuarial concepts would be preferable, but not essential

• Ability to deliver projects, working collaboratively with colleagues across the business, or external suppliers to establish and deliver against a roadmap, deploying data science solutions at scale against best practice coding and development standards

What you’ll get for this role:

Our purpose - with you today, for a better tomorrow – is a promise we make to our colleagues too.  And one of the ways we live up to that promise is by investing in you.  We have so much to offer when it comes to being an Aviva colleague.

• Starting salary between £70,000 - £85,000 (depending on location, skills, experience, and qualifications)

• Bonus opportunity 12% of annual salary Actual amount depends on your performance and Aviva’s.

• Generous pension scheme - Aviva will contribute up to 14%, depending on what you put in.

• 29 days holiday plus bank holidays, and you can choose to buy or sell up to 5 days

• Make your money go further - Up to 40% discount on Aviva products, and other retailer discounts

• Up to £1,200 of free Aviva shares per year through our Matching Share Plan and share in the success of Aviva with our Save As You Earn scheme

• Brilliantly supportive policies including parental and carer’s leave

• Flexible benefits to suit you, including sustainability options such as cycle to work

• Make a difference, be part of our Aviva Communities and use your 3 paid volunteering days to help others

• We take your wellbeing seriously with lots of support and tools

Take a look to learn more.  Put a salary into this calculator to see what your total Aviva Reward could be.

Aviva is for everyone:

We’re inclusive and welcome everyone – we want applications from all backgrounds and experiences. Excited but not sure you tick every box? Even if you don’t, we would still encourage you to apply. We also consider all forms of flexible working, including part time and job shares.

We flex locations, hours and working patterns to suit our customers, business, and you. Most of our people are smart working – spending around 50% of their time in our offices every week - combining the benefits of flexibility, with time together with colleagues.

To find out more about working at Aviva take a look here

We interview every disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria for the job. Once you’ve applied, please send us an email stating that you have a disclosed disability, and we’ll interview you.

We’d love it if you could submit your application online. If you require an alternative method of applying, please give Alannah Burgess a call on 07391381173 or send an email to alannah.burgess1@aviva.com.