Data Science & AI Specialist

Job Description

Job Req ID: 57474

Posting Date: 13/04/2026

Function: Data & AI

Location: Ipswich or London

Working Style: Hybrid (3 days a week in office, 2 days from anywhere)

About the role

We are renowned for designing and running the best operational teams in the industry. We support some of the biggest brands in the UK across both mobile and fixed networks and we invest heavily in our people and technology to make sure our customers get the best experience.

It's in our culture to evolve and become better. With the emergence of AI, we are keen to embrace the technology and understand the art of the possible.

We are hiring a Data & AI Specialist responsible for designing and implementing a Data Strategy that will underpin our AI & Automation strategy in Network Operations. Data & AI sits at the heart of our transformation journey within the Network Operations team. By focusing on Data & AI, this role will be pivotal in driving our shift towards the next generation of operations teams.

The work involves delivering sophisticated data, Machine Learning (ML) and AI models in collaboration with our tooling teams to develop cutting edge automation. This will enhance the efficiency and reliability of our Network

Operations and enable us to proactively address issues, optimise performance, and deliver superior service to our customers. Your contributions will be instrumental in creating a smarter, more responsive network that leverages the power of Data & AI to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. This will enhance customer experience, provide business value, and help us remain competitive.

As part of our transformation team, you will offer insights and expertise on Data & AI, ensuring alignment with business objectives. The team values are curiosity, transparency, and continuous improvement, which support strong stakeholder relationships.

This role offers opportunities to explore cutting edge technologies, develop skills, innovate, and advance your career.

What you’ll be doing

• Leads the modelling and analysis of big data through the application of Data Science & AI techniques to generate insight from data to support decision-making that underpins our automation and AI strategy within Network Operations.
• Working with Network Operations Transformation team to develop and support our Data & AI workstream to implement AI driven network automation.
• Provide expertise and guidance to tooling team in planning Data and AI projects from concept to implementation.
• Acting as a transformation partner for initiatives involving data automation, AI/ML applications, and advanced analytics capabilities.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure Data & AI solutions align with business needs and quality standards.
• Lead the continual improvement of our Data & AI solutions, i.e. process improvements / operational monitoring / automation opportunities / security.
• Contribute to upkeep of our strategic data platform architecture, the data engineering community and associated standards.
• Continuously develops and shares knowledge on emerging trends and changes in data science & AI.

Essential Skills / Experience

• Using Data Science: Provides data science expertise, identifies trends and shares business insights across the team.
• Experience applying data analysis, modelling, and engineering practices to complex data sets.
• Data & AI: Expertise in how data is stored, extracted, correlated and visualised. An understating of how AI and automation can utilise the data layer. Understand what is required across the whole project life cycle to make data and AI projects successful.
• Technical Expert: Driving or/contributing model development, including data exploration, training data, feature extraction, validation and scoring.
• Knowledge or experience in coding skills relevant to data manipulation (e.g. PL/SQL, Python, R),
• Strong understanding of data platforms, architecture, and tooling at a high level (you don’t need to be a data engineer, but someone who can partner credibly with them).
• Be agile: Leads collaborative and agile ways of working through projects and programs effectively managing changing priorities.
• Ability to adapt and respond to evolving technologies, tools, and business demands within a fast‑moving data landscape.
• Clear communicator with the ability to present insights, assumptions, and limitations to both technical and non‑technical audiences, and to influence decision‑making.
• Experience working collaboratively within multi‑disciplinary data teams, contributing to shared standards, peer review, and technical direction.

Desirable Skills / Experience

• Business acumen: Knowledgeable in business strategy and the drivers of organisational performance, including people drivers of performance and financial literacy (e.g. business KPIs, business cases).
• Enthusiastic about learning and applying new technologies (growth mindset).
• Ability to build new solutions and support our data solutions/products.
• Knowledge of automation frameworks and CI/CD for data products/models.
• Experience with tooling such as Jupyter and Ab Initio.
• Aware of LLM platforms (AWS Bedrock, OpenAI, Hugging Face), prompt engineering, distributed data systems (Kafka, Apache Pulsar), columnar databases (ClickHouse, Druid), and ETL/ELT tools.

Our Package

Tailored benefits make a real difference. That’s why we offer a comprehensive range to support your growth, wellbeing, and everyday life.
You can design the package to suit you and your lifestyle. Your core benefits include:

• 10% on target annual bonus
• Access to an online private GP 24/7 for you and your immediate family
• Market-leading paid carers leave with up to 2 weeks off
• Equalized maternity, paternity, and adoption leave – 18 weeks’ full pay and 8 weeks’ half pay
• Discounted EE and BT products, including mobile and broadband
• Market leading Pension scheme – 5% from you and 10% from us
• Holiday purchase scheme

You can select additional benefits, including healthcare, dental, gym memberships and more when you’re ready.
Ready to connect for good and help shape the future? Apply now

BT Group is the UK’s leading communications group and the holding company behind some of the country’s most recognised brands – including BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet. Our purpose is as simple as it is ambitious: we connect for good. Our customers include consumers, small, medium and large businesses, public sector organisations and other communications providers.

BT Group’s role is about setting direction, unlocking value and creating the conditions for our brands and businesses to thrive.

Having come through the most capital-intensive phase of our fibre investment, our focus now is on what comes next – simplifying how we operate, using technology and AI to work smarter, and organising ourselves to serve customers better and grow sustainably. Group teams shape strategy, policy, brand, capital allocation and transformation, helping the whole organisation perform at its best.

We have a singular culture that unites all our people: we are customer-first challengers, who are committed, clear and connected. These behaviours unite us as one team to deliver for our colleagues, our customers, our stakeholders and the country. Joining BT Group means working at the heart of a business that matters to the UK, with the opportunity to shape decisions, influence outcomes and help set the future course of one of the country’s most important companies.