Summary
A senior data scientist may have responsibility for managing and developing teams.
At this role level, you will:
have a broad knowledge of data science techniques, use cases and potential impact, as well as the tools and technologies
have extensive experience in scoping, designing and delivering data science outputs and products
work collaboratively with a range of experts in support of organisational objectives
communicate effectively and challenge delivery plans and priorities
appreciate and understand data ethics, data preparation and manipulation
appreciate and understand delivery methods, and how to deliver supported solutions at scale
Work Activity Components
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Model evaluation and advice (Level Four) | Develops data hypotheses and methods and evaluates analytics models. Advises on the effectiveness of specific techniques based on project findings and comprehensive research. |
Technical Skills
| Title | Details | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Big Data | The discipline associated with data sets so large and/or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate. The data files may include structured, unstructured and/or semi-structured data, such as unstructured text, audio, video, etc. Challenges include analysis, capture, curation, search, sharing, storage, transfer, manipulation, analysis, visualization and information privacy. | Proficient in |
| Business Environment | The business environment relating to own sphere of work (own organisation and/or closely associated organisations, such as customers, suppliers, partners and competitors), in particular those aspects of the business that the specialism is to support (i.e. localised organisational awareness from a technical perspective). | Familiar with |
| Programming Languages | A set of codes and syntax (supported by software tools) that enables the unambiguous translation of specified functionality into source code for the creation of computer programs. | Proficient in |
Training
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Data Management | Data management concepts, methods, tools and techniques relating to the planning, development, implementation, administration and curation of data. |
| Numerical Analysis Methods and Techniques | Numerical analysis methods and techniques and how they can enable the specification of options and associated action plans for the implementation of IT-enabled business processes. Numerical analysis may cover costing, logistics optimisation, econometric modelling as well as decision rules. |
| Coaching | Concepts, methods and techniques for providing coaching in subject specialisms to individuals or groups (e.g. GROW model). |
Professional Development Activity (PDA)
| Title | Details | PDA Group |
|---|---|---|
| Deputising | Standing in for supervisor or manager on a temporary basis during periods of absence. | Broadening Activities |
| Gaining Knowledge of Activities of Employing Organisation | Developing an understanding of the potentially diverse range of activities (service, governance, administrative, regulatory, commercial, charitable, industrial, etc.) undertaken by the employing organisation. | Increasing Knowledge |
| Gaining Knowledge of IT Concepts and Techniques | Undertaking study, learning and, where possible, practice in IT concepts and techniques external to own function. | Increasing Knowledge |
| Job Shadowing and Special Assignments | Undertaking temporary periods or secondments in other roles, particularly those that offer a new perspective on own function or exposure to other environments and cultures. | Broadening Activities |
| Negotiating and Influencing | Undertaking learning and practice of negotiating with and influencing others. | Developing Professional Skills |
| Participation in Professional Body Affairs | Taking an active part in professional body affairs at branch, specialist group, committee or board level. | Participation in Professional Activities |
| Research Assignments | Exploring a topic which is not part of own normal responsibilities and presenting findings to colleagues and/or management | Increasing Knowledge |
| Team Leadership | Undertaking learning and practice of the skills required to lead teams, including motivation, direction, coaching, delegation, appraisal, counselling and developing others. | Developing Professional Skills |
Qualification Components
| Title | Awarding Bodies |
|---|---|
| FEDIP Senior Practitioner | The Federation for Informatics Professionals |
Additional Frameworks
National Competency Framework for Data Professionals in Health and Care
Behaviours
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Delivering outcomes (B1.1) (Level Three) | You initiate work with others in your team and beyond in order to bring about a generally agreed outcome. |
| Communicating within a hierarchy (B1.2) (Level Three) | You are able to communicate to those in authority when their requests are in conflict with each other. |
| Generating consensus (B1.3) (Level Three) | You are generally able to quickly gather a consensus of opinion to support your ideas. |
| Logical arguments (B1.4) (Level Three) | You are able to construct a clearly predicated argument with logically consistent conclusions. |
| Negotiation (B1.5) (Level Three) | You are able to negotiate exchanges over multiple poles of interest in order to achieve a specific result. |
| Generating support (B1.6) (Level Three) | You are always able to gather help with minimal effort when faced with a tricky problem. |
| Influence (B1.7) (Level Three) | You are able to apply influence even when faced with being influenced by a number of peers. |
| Equality (B2.1) (Level Three) | You make extra efforts to ensure that, where the voices of certain groups are not being heard, you take the time to hear them. |
| Challenging discrimination (B2.2) (Level Three) | You articulate, when prompted, the fact that discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated by your organisation and signpost issues to senior management for immediate resolution. |
| NHS Constitution (B2.3) (Level Three) | You have a detailed understanding of following the behaviours and values listed in the NHS Constitution. |
| Supporting others (B2.4) (Level Three) | You are supportive of others and take time to ensure they are okay. Whilst ensuring everyone has someone to talk to, you ensure that you are able to talk to someone when you need to as well. |
| Open environment (B2.5) (Level Three) | You help to model an open environment by facilitating sessions for underrepresented and marginalised individuals to share their lived experiences with you and your colleagues, asking questions and escalating concerns to your line manager. |
| Written communication (B3.1) (Level Three) | You are able to convey complex written ideas, citing a variety of sources, in a clear and concise manner. |
| Supporting others (B2.4) (Level Three) | You are supportive of others and take time to ensure they are okay. Whilst ensuring everyone has someone to talk to, you ensure that you are able to talk to someone when you need to as well. |
| Open environment (B2.5) (Level Three) | You help to model an open environment by facilitating sessions for underrepresented and marginalised individuals to share their lived experiences with you and your colleagues, asking questions and escalating concerns to your line manager. |
| Written communication (B3.1) (Level Three) | You are able to convey complex written ideas, citing a variety of sources, in a clear and concise manner. |
| Discussing complex ideas (B3.2) (Level Three) | You are able to discuss complex ideas in a clear and accessible manner to a non-technical audience. |
| Delivering complex ideas (B3.3) (Level Three) | You deliver complex ideas and insights to a diverse range of audiences. |
| Understanding new ideas (B3.4) (Level Three) | You are able to understand new and complex ideas from multiple sources in order to convey the information concisely. |
| Reading audiences (B3.5) (Level Three) | You are able to assess how comfortable someone is in understanding your information and naturally cover the information they are unclear on in a new and accessible manner. |
| Problem sharing (B4.1) (Level Three) | You regularly work on problems with others outside of your immediate work area while respecting pre-agreed boundaries. |
| Seeking opinions (B4.2) (Level Three) | You seek out the opinions of a number of others to create a rich solution to a problem. |
| Sharing best practice (B4.3) (Level Three) | You collate and offer best practice in your area and openly share your findings. |
| Embedding best practice (B4.4) (Level Three) | You seek out exemplars of "what good looks like" and embed them within your area. |
| Patient impact (B5.1) (Level Three) | You seek out ways of making your actions better for patients. |
| Understanding the customer (B5.2) (Level Three) | You take time to consult with the client, offering a range of solutions. |
| Customer service (B5.3) (Level Three) | You spend time on complex problems to understand the customer's perspective and solutions that would add value. |
| Customer solutions (B5.4) (Level Three) | You seek out new and innovative solutions to proactively inform customers of efficiencies in your provision. |
Leadership
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Empathy and understanding (Level Three) | You are always available to your team and consistently act with care, empathy and compassion. |
| Pressure (Level Three) | You are able to explain to those around you why organisational and political pressures make it seem like senior managers are pulling in a different direction sometimes. |
| EDI (Level Three) | You actively engage in your organisation's EDI networks and take care to appreciate the lived experiences of those people different to you. |
| Team support (Level Three) | You back your team consistently when questioned in public. |
| Positivity (Level Three) | You are able to act effectively and fairly when under pressure whilst being aware of the dangers of favouritism on morale. |
| Innovation (Level Three) | You seek out innovations that will support your team's work. |
| Safe to fail (Level Three) | You will promote your team's successes publicly and examine failures privately, taking responsibiity for those failures in public. |
| Fairness (Level Three) | You understand the preferences and strengths of individuals within your team and can utilise them effectively whilst developing their skills in other areas. |
| Opportunities (Level Three) | You empower the team to follow through on new ideas or processes, providing a safe environment in which to try new things. |
| Goals (Level Three) | You set clear goals and articulate achievable expectations. |
| Performance (Level Three) | You offer support to your team to exceed expectations. |
| Motivation (Level Three) | You consistently celebrate success but also promote learning through failure in safe environments. |
| Expectations (Level Three) | You are able to articulate disappointment when the efforts of others fall below expectations. |
| Succession planning (Level Three) | You are able to readily identify those in your team who have the opportunity to excel at their level and beyond and use this knowledge to begin succession planning. |
| Managing expenditure (Level Three) | You are able to manage your expenditure and ensure you have no quarterly or annual overspend. |
| Budget control (Level Three) | You are able to plan and manage your budgets ensuring that you have the enough money allocated to the correct area. |
| Forecasting (Level Three) | You are able to produce accurate forecasts based on current expenditure and foreseen developments within your team. |
| Business cases (Level Three) | You are able to highlight the need for a business case in new areas or work and identify options for appraisal. |
| Headcount (Level Three) | You are able to accurately plan workload to headcount, identifying how much is required in each area. |
| Recruitment (Level Three) | You take time to build your recruitment processes around professional standards whilst ensuring that the process remains open and transparent for all. |
| Supporting ambition (Level Three) | You understand the backgrounds and motivations for all members of your team and ensure that all efforts are made to support their ambitions whilst aligning them to the needs of the organisation. |
| Training opportunities (Level Three) | You provide ample opportunity for training for all members of your team whether that is from internal colleagues, external organisations or specialist providers. |
| Professional development (Level Three) | You ensure that all staff are able to focus a portion of their work time on CPD and ensure that their Personal Development Plans are regularly reviewed, updated and constantly worked on. |
| Managing external pressures (Level Three) | You ensure that time is set aside for the team to focus on each aspect of their role, wherever possible, free from distraction and interruption, protecting them, where possible, from the pressures of other managers outside the department, ensuring their well-being is protected from external pressures. |
Data Skills
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Analytics techniques (DSC1.1) (Level Three) | Applies a range of analytical techniques, in consultation with experts where appropriate, and with sensitivity to the limitations of the techniques. |
| Analytics standards and policies (DSC1.2) (Level Three) | Exhibits expertise in a number of techniques including their theoretical basis and application. |
| Technique application (DSC1.3) (Level Three) | Uses expertise to propose techniques appropriate to business problems and the characteristics of datasets. |
| Generating value (DSC1.14) (Level Three) | Specifies and applies appropriate analytical techniques to create value added data science products, drawing on expertise in a wide range of techniques and often directing analytical contributions from others. |
| Data science outputs (DSC1.4) (Level Three) | Plans and drives all stages of the development of data science and analytics solutions. |
| Evaluating data science techniques (DSC1.5) (Level Three) | Investigates the described problem and available datasets to assess the usefulness of data science solutions, undertaking discovery activity to inform these investigations. |
| Data science deployment DSC1.6 (Level Three) | Contributes to the development, evaluation, monitoring and deployment of data science solutions using specialised programming languages and tools. |
| Healthcare specific analytics DSC1.7 (Level Three) | Understands and applies rules and guidelines specific to analytics in healthcare and anticipates risks and other implications of modelling. |
| Analysis and reporting DSC1.8 (Level Three) | Effectively implements analysis and reporting in areas where there is some complexity and ambiguity. |
| Communication of results DSC1.9 (Level Three) | Communicates results using methods appropriate to the target audience, ensuring that model performance and uncertainty are understood. |
| Improvement of techniques DSC1.10 (Level Three) | Manages reviews of the benefits and value of analytics techniques and tools and recommends improvements. |
| Policy development (Level Three) | Contributes to developing policy, standards, and guidelines for developing, evaluating, monitoring, and deploying data science solutions. |
| Expert advice (Level Three) | Provides expert advice in evaluating the problems put forward for solution with data science techniques. |
| Technical architectures DSC1.13 (Level Three) | Designs, implements, tests, and improves technical architectures and systems. |
| Promoting data science DSC2.1 (Level Three) | Actively identifies and takes opportunities to promote data science to the wider community. |
| Professional development (Data Science) (DSC2.2) (Level Three) | Supports recruitment and professional development of self and others. |
| Professional networking (Data Science) (DSC2.3) (Level Three) | Is an active member of networks and communities. |
| Risk and reputation (Level Three) | Identifies areas of potential risk in own and others' work, selecting and using appropriate quality assurance methods and suggests appropriate mitigation of risk. |
| Quality Assurance (Data Science) (Level Three) | Plans, organises and conducts analytical quality assurance activity in line with organisational standards and frameworks and determines whether appropriate standards have been met. |
| Legal and ethical (Level Three) | Considers legal and ethical issues. |
| Quality assessments DSC2.7 (Level Three) | Provides advice and guidance in the use of organisational standards and frameworks. |
| Control (DSC2.9) (Level Two) | Contributes to documentation to assure that appropriate quality control activities and ethics considerations have taken place. |
| Reporting (DSC3.1) (Level Three) | Reports fully on own and team's analytical work in sufficient detail to meet customer needs, effectively presenting results in both written and oral form and explaining strengths and limitations of analysis and the underlying data. |
| Key messages (DSC3.2) (Level Three) | Communicates key messages from analytical work in clear and concise terms for a variety of audiences. |
| Explanation and recommendation (DSC3.3) (Level Three) | Clearly explains the implications of analytical evidence and makes reasonable recommendations based on the results of analysis. |
| Tailored presentation (DSC3.4) (Level Three) | Draws out the key messages for the customer and provides insight to inform debate and influence decision making. |
| Data visualisation (Data Science) (DSC3.5) (Level Three) | Independently creates and delivers reports and data visualisations in accordance with stakeholder needs and agreed standards. |
| Improving outputs (DSC3.6) (Level Three) | Leads colleagues to create more advanced outputs. |
| Tool selection (DSC3.7) (Level Two) | Selects appropriate visualisation techniques and tools from the options available. |
| User needs (DSC3.8) (Level Three) | Evaluates data products to ensure that they meet the needs of a variety of users and utilises feedback for continuous improvement. |
| User research/design (DSC3.9) (Level Three) | Understands the value of User Research and User Centred Design and adopts these principles and/or collaborates effectively with colleagues from these professions to deliver enhanced products. |
| Opportunities (Level Three) | Highlights opportunities offered by new data and technology. |
| Evolving technology (Level Three) | Keeps abreast of new and evolving technologies, tools, and analytical techniques, such as free and/or open source software, and suggests appropriate methods and techniques to incorporate in project work. |
| Experimentation (Level Three) | Experiments with innovations, manages and learns from failures and shares lessons learned within and across teams. |
| Emerging technology selection (Level Three) | Works collaboratively with customers to develop proposals for the development of new data products that will meet user needs, including novel solutions that will allow customers to work in new ways and/or take advantage of previously untapped data resources. |
| Alternative solutions (Level Three) | Interrogates datasets in novel ways to generate insight and/or add value to data products. |
| Innovation strategy (Level Two) | Looks for ways to automate and improve efficiency of repeatable analytical workflows. |
| Data transformation (Data Science) (Level Three) | Applies data analysis, design, modelling, and quality assurance techniques, to establish, modify or maintain data pipelines, datasets and metadata for diverse data types. |
| Data exploration (Level Three) | Maintains and applies specialist knowledge in data exploration techniques for diverse data types |
| Data warehousing (Data Science) (Level Three) | Develops and maintains knowledge of database and data warehouse concepts, design principles and technologies and works with data engineers to implement database / data warehouse designs that support the demands of data analytics. |
| Existing data sources (Level Three) | Develops new uses of existing data sources. |
| Analytical potential (Level Three) | Maximises the analytical potential of new and existing data sources including open data. |
| Data integrity (Level Three) | Assesses the integrity and suitability of data from multiple sources. |
| Data linking (Level Three) | Applies knowledge in the breadth of techniques available for manipulating and creating new data sources through linking or matching multiple datasets. |
| Data requirements (Data Science) (Level Three) | Investigates data requirements where there is some complexity and ambiguity. |
| Data sources (Level Three) | Enables efficiencies by ensuring that information about data sources is documented and made available for the benefit of others. |
| Data quality (Data Science) (Level Three) | Carries out complex data quality checking and remediation. |
| Data structures (Level Three) | Provides advice and guidance to others using data structures. |
| Data standards (Level Three) | Provides advice on the transformation of data from one format or medium to another. |
| Accessibility (Level Three) | Takes responsibility for the accessibility, retrievability, quality, and ethical handling of data within analytical products. |
| Programming (Data Science) (Level Three) | Plans, designs, creates, amends, refactors, verifies, tests and documents complex programs/scripts and integration software services. |
| Development approaches (Level Three) | Contributes to selection of the development approach and tools for projects. |
| Engineering standards (Level Three) | Applies agreed standards to achieve well-engineered outcomes. |
| Development reviews (Level Three) | Participates in reviews of own work and leads reviews of colleagues' work. |
| Development standards (Data Science) (Level Three) | Anticipates requirements for scalability, resilience, reproducibility and security and ensures these are addressed. |
| Automation (Level Three) | Operationalises and automates activities for the efficient and timely production of data products eg reproducable analytical pipeline (rap). |
| Dependencies (Level Three) | Clearly articulates dependencies on other teams / systems / infrastructure and builds these in to plans. |
| Advanced Statistics (Level Two) | You understand key regression models, cluster analysis, factor analysis, principal component analysis etc. You apply the currect techniques to the business questions. You understand the limits and assumptions behind each technique. |
| Machine Learning (Level Two) | You can create algorithms/queries etc. that use analytical methods such as regression analysis and iteratively enhance the supervised learning models. You understand the differences between the various learning models. |
| Hypothesis Testing (Level Two) | You can determine the correct statistical tests for hypotheses, along with whether testing should be one tailed or two tailed. You understand alpha and beta and what p-values and confidence limits mean and you know how to calculate them. |
| Behavioural Science (Level Two) | You are able to abstract concepts allowing you to prototype a solution and a methodology and can design, deploy and manage experimental designs. |
| Social Research (Level Two) | You are able to use tools including surveys, interviews, focus group discussions and observations to collect information that you are able to analyse and from which you can draw conclusions. |
| Economics (Level Two) | You can apply the appropriate micro or macro-economic principles to lead the production of forecasts and associated analysis, related to the performance of the aggregated economy. You can design, create, test and refine econometric or statistical models to support decision making. |
| Operational Research (Level Two) | You have the ability to analyse issues of concern incisively and to develop effective and systematic methods to resolve them persuasively. |
Project Skills
| Title | Details |
|---|---|
| Business cases (WP1.1) (Level Three) | You assess business requirements with stakeholders and draft business cases for your area of expertise, highlighting benefits, risks and costs and ensuring issues such as sustainability are addressed where appropriate. |
| Scope (WP1.2) (Level Three) | You adopt rigorous scope, quality and change management practices and ensure they are adhered to throughout the team. |
| Reviews (WP1.3) (Level Three) | You contribute to project reviews, documenting and communicating where lessons are learned. |
| Advice and monitoring (WP2.1)(Level Three) | You advise on and monitor budgets for time, resources and other costs for data and digital project activities enforcing budget controls. |
| Complexity (Level Two) | You understand and can articulate when the complexity of a proposed project requires further professional management or support. |
| Scheduling (WP2.3)(Level Three) | You sequence the activities in data and digital projects logically, effectively and efficiently, incorporating any lessons learned from similar past projects. |
| Refinement (Level Two) | You refine the plan within your work area to take account of any authorised changes communicating actions, progress and results with project managers. |
| Resource identification (WP3.1)(Level Three) | You identify and budget for the resources required to fulfil the project plan's requirements. |
| Skill acquisition and management (WP3.2)(Level Three) | You plan for the recruitment of staff with additional required skill sets, liaising with HR and/or other providers to source skilled staff to fulfil project roles, onboard and manage them and their workloads. |
| Additional tools and resources (Level Three) | You cost and acquire, deploy and contract for the support of additional tools and resources such as hardware, software, training and data sources for the course of the project life cycle. |
| Resource allocation (Level Two) | You plan the allocation of existing resources to project work whilst effectively maintaining business as usual wherever feasible. |
| Project management (WP4.1)(Level Three) | You manage the allocation and co-ordination of project-related activities, collaborating with project managers to establish and embed key risk management and issue resolution processes. |
| Pilots and testing (WP4.2)(Level Three) | You lead on the scoping of testing and pilots, reporting key findings and re-assessing the expected benefits. |
| Implementation (WP4.3)(Level Three) | You engage with project beneficiaries to co-ordinate effective roll-out. |
| Communications (Level Two) | You communicate effectively with others, adapting your style and approach as and when required. |
| Business change (WP5.1)(Level Three) | You understand the business case for change and how data and digital can facilitate that, collaborating with project managers to define an achievable technological outcome which fosters new ways of working. |
| Assurance (WP5.2)(Level Three) | You positively influence stakeholders, building networks and alliances and lead the focus within data and digital on customer satisfaction. |
| Evaluation (WP5.3) (Level Three) | You ensure appropriate solutions are evaluated and viable alternatives are considered to deliver the intended business benefits. |
The Professional Body Responsible for this job family is AphA. This job role profile was created in collaboration with BCS, using Role Model Plus.