Job Description
About the Analysis & Data Team:
Our team is dedicated to transforming numbers into insights, enabling players and coaches to excel in every aspect of the game.
We employ cutting-edge analytics tools to assess player performance, team dynamics, and opponent strategies.
Collaboration with the Coaching and Player Recruitment Teams is vital to our success. We work hand-in-hand to identify key performance indicators that align with our club's objectives, ensuring that our analyses contribute directly to training regimens and recruitment strategies.
We also prioritise communication and transparency, sharing our findings and insights with players and coaching staff through regular workshops and reports. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement and encourages players to leverage data in their personal development.
The Opportunity:
As a Data Scientist, you will develop cutting-edge predictive models and machine learning algorithms for player performance forecasting, injury risk assessment, recruitment targeting, and tactical analysis. You will create bespoke statistical metrics aligned with the Club’s football philosophy and strategic goals, conducting in-depth opposition analysis, player comparisons, set-piece evaluations, and match outcome predictions. Utilizing advanced statistical techniques such as regression, clustering, classification, and time-series forecasting, you will unlock meaningful insights from complex datasets.
Additionally, you will build interactive dashboards and analytical tools using Python, R, Tableau, Power BI, and custom web applications, making data accessible and understandable across departments. You will play a vital role in research and innovation by staying current with emerging trends, evaluating new technologies, and enhancing our analytical capabilities. Collaborating with our external Data Platform partner, you will design and maintain scalable data pipelines and databases, ensuring data integrity, security, and accessibility. This is a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of football analytics, applying your expertise to drive our club’s success on and off the pitch.
What We Ask For:
The ideal candidate will hold a Bachelor’s degree or higher in Data Science, Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related quantitative field. You should have a proven track record of developing analytical solutions within professional sports, football analytics, or other data-intensive environments. Strong proficiency in programming languages such as Python (including pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, TensorFlow/PyTorch) and/or R is essential, along with experience working with SQL and relational database management systems like PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server. Hands-on experience with data visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or Plotly is required. A solid understanding of machine learning algorithms, statistical modeling, and experimental design is crucial.
In addition, we value expertise in data architecture, data modeling, and database optimization, alongside strong analytical skills to evaluate data quality, identify biases, and validate assumptions. Experience with cloud platforms, version control systems like Git, and collaborative development workflows is highly desirable. Familiarity with web development frameworks such as Flask, Django, or Streamlit for building internal tools, as well as knowledge of API integration and web scraping techniques, will be advantageous. An understanding of football performance metrics, tracking data, and event data structures is a plus, while knowledge of JavaScript is a bonus but not essential.
You will be required to obtain an Enhanced DBS through SAFC.
