Lead Data Scientist - Manchester My client is seeking a Lead Data Scientist to own and drive the end-to-end data science strategy across high-impact business domains (e.g., risk, fraud, affordability, customer value).This role will translate complex, real-world financial data into production-grade machine learning systems that deliver measurable commercial and customer outcomes.The successful candidate will lead model development from ideation through deployment and monitoring, working closely with Data Engineers, Analysts, Product, Risk, and Technology stakeholders. They will set standards for experimentation, governance, and MLOps while mentoring and developing other data scientists within the function.This is a hands-on technical leadership role - both strategic and delivery-focused. The Role Strategic and Technical Leadership Define and evolve the data science roadmap aligned to business priorities.Identify high-value ML use cases and translate commercial problems into scalable analytical solutions.Lead end-to-end model lifecycle delivery: problem framing, feature engineering, experimentation, validation, deployment, monitoring, and iteration.Establish best practices for experimentation, evaluation, reproducibility, and documentation.Set standards for model governance, explainability, monitoring, and auditability within a regulated financial environment. Machine Learning and Delivery Architect and develop robust ML models (e.g., classification, regression, anomaly detecti