Head of Data Science/AI

The way we live, work and travel has.At Zego, we're leading the AI evolution in insurance.AI takes the routine work off every team, from Finance to Product to Marketing, so people ship real code and launch custom dashboards in minutes. Engineering commits are entirely AI-assisted, which shifts the focus from team size to the quality of your thinking, and our data warehouse connects directly to an AI assistant for instant answers. Backed by a modern tech stack (Claude Code, Snowflake, Figma and Zapier) and a commitment to adopting new tools in days rather than quarters, you get complete ownership to do the most impactful work of your career. Purpose of the roleZego has recorded over a billion miles of real-world driving, captured from phone sensors (accelerometer, GPS and more) across tens of thousands of policies and four very different kinds of driving: private car, van, taxi and delivery. The Telematics team uses digital signal processing and machine learning to turn that raw signal into a precise picture of how people actually drive. We use it to price insurance more fairly, to help drivers be safer on the road, and to power Zego Rewards, everyday rewards for good driving that turn car insurance into an engaging product rather than a box to tick.We own the full telematics stack (mobile SDK, on-device ML, cloud pipeline) and the full pricing stack. So we can link driving behaviour directly to claim type, frequency and severity, and feed one system's predictions straight into the other. As Head of Telematics Data Science you will set the research agenda and own the technical direction of that work, reporting to the Director of Data. You will lead three data scientists directly and three ML engineers with a dotted line to you. Our long-term ambition is driving behaviour modelling that holds up across countries and handsets, is highly predictive of claims risk, and is deeply integrated with driver coaching so we can offer the fairest price and the best experience to good drivers anywhere. The problems you will be working onContinuously pushing the predictive power of our existing algorithms and ML modelsTelling drivers apart from passengers using sensor data aloneDetecting crashes and estimating their severityBringing map and road-context data into our models in a way that genuinely improves predictionHandling handset and sensor heterogeneity, so a model behaves consistently on a five-year-old Android and a new iPhoneOn-device ML under real battery and compute constraints - trip detection already runs on the phone, and more couldMaking behavioural risk models transfer to new markets, starting with JapanSeveral of these are open problems across the industry, not just at Zego.What you will be doingDefine and drive the technical roadmap, making sure the team is working on the highest-impact problemsLead the development of novel models to detect human behaviour and vehicle kinematics from high-frequency phone sensor data, on-device and in the cloudAct as the primary technical authority on telematics across the business, advising on existing products, surfacing patterns nobody has thought to look for, and identifying new value propositionsBuild, grow and mentor the team, setting the technical standards needed to produce exceptional workPartner with Pricing to integrate telematics predictions into how we price risk, and with Data Products and Engineering to embed telematics insight into Zego's core productsPush our use of AI in the work itself in analytics, in model development, and in the driver coaching experiences we are buildingRepresent our telematics science to senior leadership, commercial teams and partners including SompoOwn the metrics that track real-world model impact in production, and make sure our models meet our obligations around fair pricing when a model influences what someone pays, the fairness of that model is part of the jobRequirementsWhat you will need to be successfulA Master's or PhD in Data Science, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or a related quantitative field though we are equally happy to talk to people with equivalent industry research experienceDeep expertise in machine learning and deep learning, preferably with hands-on experience building and deploying models on high-frequency time-series sensor dataA strong grounding in signal processing: signal modelling, decomposition, transforms and sensor physicsExperience leading and growing a data science team developing people and delivering through others, without losing touch with the technical workStrong software engineering practice: Python, version control, reproducible pipelines and production-ready codeExperience with large-scale data processing (we use Kafka, Spark and Flink)The ability to explain complex technical work clearly to senior leadership, commercial teams and partners, and a bias for connecting research to business outcomesPreferably, experience with on-device or embedded ML under compute and power constraintsFamiliarity with regulated environments, or with fairness and bias in applied models, is a plusYou work AI-first. You will use AI daily here, and we mean daily. Working here means having the backing, the coaching, and an inclusive community of Zegons across the UK and Europe who celebrate your wins and raise your game. It also means holding ourselves to high standards: moving with urgency, taking complete ownership, and embracing honest feedback that helps us continuously learn and evolve.This is your opportunity for a career-defining experience, and one you will own.We call it Zego Hybrid: some of us are in our central London office weekly, others monthly or quarterly. BenefitsMarket-competitive salary, benchmarked against your function and reviewed every yearAnnual performance bonus, linked to company performance and your contributionShare options, a real stake in the company and a share in the future you buildPrivate medical insurance, for you and your familyPension, generous holiday, and 1,000 a year to spend on getting to the office or learning something newCutting-edge systems and tools, so you always have what you need to drive your impactIf you're ready to help build the real-time, data-driven infrastructure for an intelligent world, we want to hear from you.Zego, leading the AI evolution in insurance.We were also named Best Insurance Company 2025.We're an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.Job SummaryID: F33DEE7390Department: Data and EngineeringType: full time