Lead / Principal Consultant (AI & Data Science)

Harnham - Data and Analytics Recruitment
London, United Kingdom
Last week
£90,000 – £125,000 pa

Salary

£90,000 – £125,000 pa

Job Type
Permanent
Work Location
Hybrid
Seniority
Lead
Education
Degree
Security Clearance
Required
Posted
22 May 2026 (Last week)

Benefits

3 days total per week Flexible, project-led environment

I'm hiring multiple senior hires to join a growingAI and Digital Transformation consulting practice within a premium consultancy. This team has recently secured significant investment and is scaling quickly, withmultiple hires across Lead and Principal level.

This is a role for people who want toown and deliver real AI transformation, not just advise on it.

The company

A high-end consultancy working acrossdefence, consumer, and public sector clients, known for delivering complex, high-impact programmes.

They've built a strong reputation on deliveringmeasurable commercial outcomes, not just strategy - and are now investing heavily in expanding theirAI capability to stay ahead of competitors.

Where you fit

You'll sit within theDigital / AI Consulting practice, working directly with clients to:

  • Identify opportunities for AI and advanced analytics
  • Design and deliver solutions end-to-end
  • Embed those solutions into real business operations

This is ahands-on leadership role - combining delivery, client engagement, and mentorship of other consultants.

What you'll be doing
  • Lead the design and delivery ofAI and data science solutions (LLMs, NLP, ML, etc.)
  • Work directly with senior client stakeholders to shape and deliver solutions
  • Build and deployend-to-end AI products, not just prototypes
  • Apply technologies such asLLMs, RAG systems, and agentic workflows to real business problems
  • Translate technical outputs intoclear commercial value and measurable impact
  • Mentor and develop consultants, helping build capability across the team
  • Help shape the consultancy'sAI offering and go-to-market approach
Example work
  • Using LLMs to improve decision-making and workflow automation in complex environments
  • Delivering predictive analytics in healthcare to improve outcomes and efficiency
  • Building AI-driven optimisation tools in retail to improve pricing and margins
  • Supporting large-scale programmes across defence and public infrastructure
What you bringCore requirements
  • Strongdata science / machine learning background
  • Experience deliveringAI / GenAI solutions (LLMs, NLP, etc.)
  • Proven ability to take solutions fromconcept through to real-world deployment
  • Experience leading projects, workstreams, or teams
  • Strongstakeholder engagement skills - client-facing and commercially focused
  • Evidence ofmeasurable impact (revenue uplift, cost savings, efficiency gains, etc.)
Nice to have
  • Consulting experience (highly preferred)
  • Experience acrossregulated or complex sectors (defence, public sector, retail, etc.)
  • Familiarity with modern stacks (Python, cloud, Databricks, APIs, etc.)
  • Experience mentoring or leading junior team members
Why this role
  • Shape and scale a growingAI consulting capability
  • Work oncomplex, high-impact projects across multiple industries
  • Strong blend oftechnical delivery, commercial impact, and leadership
  • High visibility internally and with clients
  • Opportunity to progress topartner level over time
Working style
  • London base (or nearest office)
  • Hybrid working, withregular client travel
  • 3 days total per week
  • Flexible, project-led environment
Interview process
  • Online assessment (incl. logical / aptitude test)
  • Informal first conversation (director-level, including short presentation)
  • Final stage onsite in London (presentation + discussion)

Related Jobs

View all jobs

Senior Data Analyst

FDM Se12Qg, SE1 2QG, United Kingdom

Data Architect

Tenth Revolution Group London, United Kingdom
£95,000 – £125,000 pa

Data Architect

Tenth Revolution Group Manchester, United Kingdom
£95,000 – £125,000 pa

Principal Data Architect - Energy, Renewables, Azure

Hays Technology London, United Kingdom
Hybrid

Principal Data Architect DV Cleared

Datatech London, United Kingdom

Senior Manager (AI Safety)

Faculty AI London, United Kingdom
Hybrid

Industry Insights

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

Where to Advertise Data Science Jobs in the UK (2026 Guide)

Where to advertise data science jobs UK in 2026: the specialist boards, communities and channels that actually reach senior and lead data science talent. Data science spans a broad and often misunderstood spectrum — from statistical modelling and experimental design through to machine learning engineering, product analytics and AI research. The strongest candidates identify firmly with specific subdisciplines and are frustrated by adverts that conflate data scientist with data analyst, business intelligence developer or machine learning engineer. General job boards produce high application volumes for data roles but consistently fail to match specialist data science profiles with the right opportunities. This guide, published by DataScienceJobs.co.uk, covers where to advertise data science roles in the UK in 2026, how the main platforms compare, what employers should expect to pay, and what the data says about hiring across different role types.

Data Science Jobs UK 2026: What to Expect Over the Next 3 Years

Data Science Jobs UK 2026: roles, salaries and the trends shaping UK data science hiring over the next three years — from MLE crossover to GenAI workflows. Data science has spent the past decade being described as the sexiest job of the twenty-first century. By 2026, the reality is both more nuanced and more interesting than that label ever suggested. The discipline has matured, fragmented, deepened, and in some respects reinvented itself — and the jobs market has changed with it in ways that create genuine opportunity for those who understand what employers actually want, and genuine difficulty for those still operating on assumptions formed five years ago. The data science jobs market of 2026 is not simply a larger version of what it was three years ago. The generalist data scientist — equally comfortable wrangling data, building models, and presenting insights to the board — is giving way to a more specialised landscape where employers know exactly what problem they are trying to solve and are looking for candidates with the specific depth to solve it. Machine learning engineering, causal inference, experimentation, AI product development, and domain-specific applied science have all emerged as distinct career tracks within what was previously a single, loosely defined profession. At the same time, the arrival of large language models and the broader AI capability wave has both threatened and created data science roles in equal measure. Some of the work that junior data scientists spent their early careers doing — data cleaning, exploratory analysis, basic model building — is being partially automated by AI tooling. But the demand for practitioners who can evaluate AI systems rigorously, apply statistical thinking to complex business problems, and build the data foundations on which AI depends has grown considerably. The candidates who will thrive over the next three years are those who understand where the discipline is heading — which specialisms are attracting the most investment, which technologies are reshaping what data scientists are expected to build and know, and how to position a data science career that will remain valuable as the field continues to evolve around them. This article breaks down what the UK data science jobs market is likely to look like through to 2028 — covering the titles emerging right now, the technologies driving employer demand, the skills that will matter most, and how to position your career ahead of the curve.