Director level Applied research, advisory

The work

Works on problems where the method is not settled yet.

A standing second opinion. Small commitments, and the ones where being right matters most because nobody is checking your work.

The bar

You have carried the decision at a level where being wrong was expensive, and you can describe a time you were.

Why this one is hard to judge. Publication record is a signal but not the signal, because the applied question is whether it survives contact with a product.

What we ask to see

• Work where the method was not settled when you started
• What you tried that did not work, and what you learned from it
• A written artefact: a paper, a report, or an internal write-up we can read

One solid item beats five vague ones. A referee we can actually call beats a link to a landing page.

What gets an application declined

• The only evidence offered is a certification, a course, or a job title
• Every piece of evidence is under an NDA and no sanitised version or referee is offered
• The work described is entirely a demonstration, a proof of concept, or a hackathon
• More than six disciplines are claimed, which we read as a signal that none has been assessed

If we decline you, the reason is written down and sent to you. The software refuses a decline without one.

What it pays

£400 to £788 a day. That is the tenth to ninetieth percentile of what UK employers advertised for the closest published titles over the six months to 8 August 2026.

Advertised UK contract day rates for Data Scientist, Artificial Intelligence, tenth to ninetieth percentile, six months to 8 August 2026. Advertised, not agreed, and set by the hirer rather than by us.