National AI Awards 2025Discover AI's trailblazers! Join us to celebrate innovation and nominate industry leaders.

Nominate & Attend

Principal Data Scientist

Forge Holiday Group Ltd
Chester
1 week ago
Create job alert

Forge your success as Principal Data Scientist at Forge Holiday Group!

Salary:

£70,000 to £80,000 per annum
Work Days & Hours:

Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, 37.5 hours per week
Working Policy:

Flexible hybrid-working policy, with a minimum of two days a week from our Chester head office
Team:

Data and Analytics
Reports to:

Data Science Manager
About Us
The Forge Holiday Group encompasses Sykes Holiday Cottages, Forest Holidays, UKcaravans4hire and Bachcare in New Zealand. We unite under four core company values that serve as the foundation of everything we do: Being One Team, Owning It, Communicating Honestly. Learning, Growing, and Innovating. These values ensure we remain true to our original ethos and ensure we stay true to our Customers, Owners and Colleagues alike.

About the Principal Data Scientist Role:
As a Principal Data Scientist, you will be a strategic and technical leader for data science, shaping the direction of our most complex, high-impact initiatives. You will provide thought leadership, mentor team members, and work cross-functionally to influence both technical and business strategy. You will lead the development and deployment of advanced machine learning and AI solutions, ensuring they are scalable, robust, and aligned with business priorities.

This role is suited to a deeply experienced, commercially-minded individual who combines strong technical expertise with excellent communication and leadership skills.

Your Responsibilities:

Own and lead the design, development and delivery of our most critical and complex data science initiatives, with clear business impact and measurable outcomes
Demonstrate system-level thinking, considering architectural choices, data dependencies and integration across the wider data platform
Develop and maintain production-grade ML systems including retraining strategies, model lifecycle management, monitoring and alerting
Act as a trusted technical authority, reviewing and challenging project design, methodology, and outputs
Drive adoption of CI/CD practices, unit testing, and monitoring frameworks in data science workflows
Lead cross-functional collaboration with engineering, product and analytics to shape and deliver strategic initiatives
Translate business strategy into data science initiatives, proactively identifying opportunities and influencing stakeholders
Shape the roadmap for tooling, technologies and approaches that support scalable, sustainable data science delivery
Mentor and develop less experienced data scientists, fostering technical and professional growth
Champion ethical AI, explainability and model governance throughout the lifecycle of our solutions
Contribute to a culture of continuous learning, experimentation and data-informed decision making
Skills and Qualifications:
We are looking for those who can share in our company goals, values and ethos, who can grow alongside us and whose skills can aid our ongoing success!

By Being One Team, Owning it, Communicating Honestly and showcasing a devotion to Learning, Growing and Innovating, we remain true to our original ethos and ensure we stay true to our Customers, Owners and Colleagues alike.

Essential Experience:

Extensive experience designing, developing and deploying machine learning and AI solutions in production environments
Statistical modelling, machine learning (e.g. logistic regression, random forest, XGBoost, and modern deep learning techniques (e.g. transformers, transfer learning, reinforcement learning)
Proven ability to lead technical direction across projects or domains
Expertise in model validation, explainability, governance and ethical AI principles
Advanced proficiency in Python (e.g. Scikit-learn, TensorFlow/PyTorch) and SQL, plus familiarity with ML engineering and MLOps practices
Nice to have:

Experience in setting or influencing data science strategy in a growing organisation
Familiarity with AWS SageMaker and modern cloud-based ML workflows
History of publications, open source contributions, or community involvement in the data science field
MSc or PhD in a quantitative field (e.g. statistics, computer science, mathematics).
Forge Holiday Groups Company Benefits

Annual STIP Company-wide Bonus Scheme offering up to an additional 10% of your salary through our performance-based bonus program
33 days of annual leave including bank holidays, plus up to 5 extra days with long service
A day off to celebrate your Birthday
Two paid Volunteering Days off annually
One of only 1000 BCORP-certified companies in the UK
Enhanced Parental leave (24 weeks maternity, 3 weeks paternity at 100% pay)
Exclusive discounts on stays for you, family and friends
Discounts and offers with a focus on your overall wellbeing
Health Cash Plan starting April 2025
Training & Development programs to set you up for success
24/7 mental health support and initiatives
Access to the gym at our Chester HQ
Chester HQ has on-site parking and is close to Chester train station
Employee Savings Scheme transferring directly from your salary
Long Service Awards
Hybrid working for selected roles.
Diversity and Inclusion:

We encourage and welcome our people to bring their authentic and best selves to work every day. We know the power that comes from different ideas, backgrounds and perspectives. We recognise the role diversity plays in achieving our goals as a business. We actively welcome applications from as wide a range of backgrounds as possible. If you need any particular support or accommodations as part of your application process, please get in touch - our recruitment team are happy to help.

Apply now to be a part of our inclusive and supportive work environment, where you'll find excellent opportunities for career progression and personal development!
#J-18808-Ljbffr

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist - Optimisation

Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist

National AI Awards 2025

Subscribe to Future Tech Insights for the latest jobs & insights, direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of service.

Industry Insights

Discover insightful articles, industry insights, expert tips, and curated resources.

How to Present Machine Learning Solutions to Non-Technical Audiences: A Public Speaking Guide for Job Seekers

Machine learning is driving change across nearly every industry—from retail and finance to health and logistics. But while the technology continues to evolve rapidly, the ability to communicate it clearly has become just as important as building the models themselves. Whether you're applying for a junior ML engineer role, a research position, or a client-facing AI consultant job, UK employers increasingly expect candidates to explain complex machine learning solutions to non-technical audiences. In this guide, you’ll learn how to confidently present your work, structure your message, use simple visuals, and explain the real-world value of machine learning in a way that makes sense to people without a background in data science.

Machine Learning Jobs UK 2025: 50 Companies Hiring Now

Bookmark this page—we refresh the Hotlist every quarter so you always know who’s really scaling their ML teams. The UK’s National AI Strategy, a £2 billion GenAI accelerator fund and a record flow of private capital have kicked ML hiring into overdrive for 2025. Whether you build production‑grade LLM services or optimise on‑device models for edge hardware, employers need your skills now. Below you’ll find 50 organisations that advertised UK‑based machine‑learning vacancies or announced head‑count growth during the past eight weeks. They’re grouped into five quick‑scan categories so you can jump straight to the type of employer—and mission—that excites you. For each company we list: Main UK hub Example live or recent vacancy Why it’s worth a look (stack, impact, culture) Search any employer on MachineLearningJobs.co.uk to see real‑time adverts, or set a free alert so fresh openings drop straight in your inbox.

Return-to-Work Pathways: Relaunch Your Machine Learning Career with Returnships, Flexible & Hybrid Roles

Returning to work after an extended break can feel like starting from scratch—especially in a specialist field like machine learning. Whether you paused your career for parenting, caring responsibilities or another life chapter, the UK’s machine learning sector now offers a variety of return-to-work pathways. From structured returnships to flexible and hybrid roles, these programmes recognise the transferable skills and resilience you’ve developed, pairing you with mentorship, upskilling and supportive networks to ease your transition back. In this guide, you’ll discover how to: Understand the current demand for machine learning talent in the UK Leverage your organisational, communication and analytical skills in ML contexts Overcome common re-entry challenges with practical solutions Refresh your technical knowledge through targeted learning Access returnship and re-entry programmes tailored to machine learning Find roles that fit around family commitments—whether flexible, hybrid or full-time Balance your career relaunch with caring responsibilities Master applications, interviews and networking specific to ML Learn from inspiring returner success stories Get answers to common questions in our FAQ section Whether you aim to return as an ML engineer, research scientist, MLOps specialist or data scientist with an ML focus, this article will map out the steps and resources you need to reignite your machine learning career.