Lead Data Scientist

Bristol, Gloucestershire
Bupa Dental Care

Lead Data Scientist

Permanent, Full-time

Hybrid – remote with travel to our offices 1-2 times per month (Bristol, Manchester, London)

Job Purpose

This is an exciting opportunity to join Bupa Dental Care’s Data Science team as a Lead Data Scientist, playing a key role in advancing AI and machine learning to improve patient outcomes, optimise practice performance, and enhance operational efficiency. You will work closely with teams across clinical, operations, product, and technology, contributing to BDC’s ambition to use data and AI responsibly, ethically, and at scale.

Our Vision for the D&A team is to unlock the full potential of our data – driving smarter decisions, empowering our people and creating lasting impact for our customers. In this role, you will lead the delivery of impactful, scalable AI solutions, manage and mentor data scientists, and help shape the technical direction of data science at BDC while ensuring alignment with business priorities and Responsible AI principles.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and delivery of AI and machine learning solutions across patient journeys, clinical risk, practice performance, and operational efficiency
• Manage and mentor a team of data scientists, fostering a collaborative, high performing culture focused on quality, innovation, and continuous improvement
• Own end to end delivery of data science initiatives, including problem definition, business case development, feature engineering, model development, deployment, and monitoring
• Apply data science to real world healthcare challenges, including forecasting patient demand, optimising service capacity, predicting clinical risks and outcomes, and improving practice performance
• Collaborate closely with clinical, operational, and product stakeholders, acting as a key partner to business units and ensuring solutions deliver measurable impact
• Drive adoption of scalable, cloud based ML solutions, ensuring alignment with best practices in MLOps, model governance, and lifecycle management

Skills & Experience

• Proven experience leading data science delivery, with a strong track record of deploying impactful AI/ML solutions in healthcare, dental, insurance, or regulated environments
• Strong hands on expertise in Python and SQL
• Experience working with cloud platforms such as Azure, GCP, or Snowflake
• Experience delivering end to end machine learning solutions, from exploration through to production deployment
• Strong understanding of machine learning workflows, MLOps, and scalable model deployment
• Experience managing or mentoring data scientists

Desirable

• Experience working with clinical or dental data
• Experience in forecasting, optimisation, or predictive modelling in healthcare contexts
• Familiarity with Azure DevOps (Boards, Repos, Pipelines) or similar tools
• Experience working with unstructured data (e.g. clinical notes, imaging)
• Interest in ethical and responsible AI

Benefits

• 25 days holiday, plus the option to buy more.
• Discounts in over 7,000 retailers, discounted gym membership and discounted dental insurance.
• Health Trust – our bespoke employee private healthcare plan, providing healthcare cover with no medical underwriting for colleagues and their families.
• Access to remote GP and nurse services, physiotherapy, and mental health support.
• MyHealthcare Allowance, an annual allowance which is redeemable against a menu of Bupa healthcare products.
• Early access to your earned wages through Wagestream.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• And many more, just ask

Bupa takes pride in being a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer and will aim to offer an interview/assessment to disabled applicants who best meet the minimum criteria for the role. We are committed to ensuring you are treated fairly during the recruitment process and offer reasonable adjustments to anyone who may benefit from accommodations to the recruitment process.

Bupa Dental Care is an equal opportunities employer.