Associate Data Scientist

Department: Data & AI

Location: UK - London

Insurance isn't the first industry most people think of when they imagine interesting data science work. That's exactly why this role is interesting.

CFC's Data & AI unit is building production agentic systems that automate complex underwriting decisions - not demos, not proof-of-concepts sitting on a shelf, but AI agents and Machine Learning pipelines that drive real business outcomes. The team includes machine learning engineers and software engineers shipping production services, and this role sits alongside them as an analytical counterpart: running experiments, stress‑testing assumptions, and generating the evidence that shapes what gets built and how it improves over time.

This is an Associate Data Scientist role designed for someone early in their career who wants genuine exposure to production AI systems from day one. You'll work closely with ML and AI engineers, contributing to discovery work that feeds directly into live services - statistical analysis, feature engineering, LLM evaluation, and the kind of careful, evidence‑based thinking that makes the difference between an AI system that works in a notebook and one that holds up under real conditions.

The problems are genuinely hard. The data is complex, the decisions are high‑stakes, and the domain has the kind of depth that keeps the work interesting. If you want to grow quickly in applied AI and ML - working on real systems, not toy datasets - this is the right environment.

• Design and run experiments that directly shape production AI agents — testing ideas, validating approaches, and turning research into deployed improvements.
• Actively explore cutting‑edge developments in AI and machine learning — with the space and support to experiment, prototype, and bring new techniques into production where they add value.
• Evaluate and refine LLM‑powered workflows — building robust evaluation frameworks, stress‑testing agent behaviour, and driving continuous quality improvements in live systems.
• Explore complex, real‑world datasets to uncover insights that meaningfully improve underwriting decisions and system performance at scale.
• Prototype and iterate on features for AI/ML pipelines, taking ideas from early exploration through to measurable impact in production services.
• Investigate how agentic systems behave in production — identifying edge cases, failure modes, and opportunities to make systems more robust and reliable.
• Collaborate closely with ML/AI engineers to bridge research and production — contributing code, debugging issues, and helping ship improvements end‑to‑end.
• Document experiments, findings, and methodologies clearly so that insights are reproducible and decisions are traceable.

We are looking for a Junior Data Scientist who enjoys solving complex problems and turning data into meaningful, real‑world outcomes. In this role, you will work across the full analytical lifecycle, from exploring data and building machine learning models to shaping how insights are communicated and applied across the business. You also play a part in how we responsibly explore and apply emerging technologies such as LLMs, focusing on how they perform and deliver value in practice.

• Combine a strong grounding in statistics with hands‑on technical capability in Python and SQL.
• Take pride in producing clear, reliable analysis.
• Be thoughtful and detail‑driven, able to communicate effectively with a wide range of stakeholders, and comfortable learning from others while growing your own ownership.
• Bring curiosity, ask the right questions, and look beneath the surface.
• Have experience with Azure, MLflow, or LLM tooling is a bonus, but not expected — we value mindset and approach just as highly as experience.