Data Scientist

About the role

ICF's data science team works with subject matter experts to turn evidence and data into practical solutions for clients in the UK and EU, covering areas such as energy, the environment, aviation, health and public policy. This is a hands-on technical and consulting role in Madrid, helping deliver data science and AI solutions across client projects, from framing questions to presenting findings.

Key responsibilities

• Speak with subject matter experts and clients to define the problem, success measures, data needs and the analytical approach.
• Prepare and analyse data, and develop and evaluate models or prototypes using statistical methods, forecasting, machine learning or language models where suitable.
• Present findings, assumptions and limitations to experts, clients and non-technical audiences, and adapt the work to their feedback.
• Collaborate across disciplines to document work, make results reproducible and turn prototypes into reliable solutions.
• Contribute technical ideas and estimates to proposals and manage several concurrent projects.
• Share methods and reusable approaches with colleagues across the data science team.

Required profile

• A relevant degree or equivalent practical experience in a quantitative field.
• Ability to take an ambiguous question from discovery to a working demonstration, explain assumptions and uncertainty, and judge whether a solution is worth developing for operational use.
• Confidence working independently and engaging stakeholders, with clear written and spoken English.
• Right to work in Spain or eligibility for visa sponsorship, and physical presence in Spain by the first day of employment.

Required skills

• Hands-on Python for analysis and modelling, including common data and machine learning libraries.
• SQL to extract, join and check data.
• Statistics and machine learning, including regression or classification, forecasting, validation and performance measures.
• Familiarity with large language models in analysis or prototyping, including prompting and checking outputs.
• Preparing imperfect data, reproducible analyses and maintainable code with version control and testing.
• Useful: public policy, government, research or evaluation experience; consulting or client-facing delivery; cloud platforms, APIs, data pipelines or deployment; AI agents connecting language models to data and tools.

ICF offers ongoing training and opportunities to deepen technical and consulting skills. Applications must be submitted directly by the applicant.