Data Scientist

Halfords have recently set up a new group-wide Commercial Planning team, across our Retail, Garages and Mobile businesses. This includes pricing, promotions, and commercial forecasting.The Data Science team are seeking a motivated Data Scientist to support the Commercial Planning and Pricing Teams. As a Data Scientist in our company, you will play a crucial role in driving data-driven pricing strategies to optimise revenue, improve customer experience, and support business growth.Joining Halfords as a Pricing and Promotions Data Scientist offers an exciting opportunity to contribute to the growth and success of a leading retail organization. You will have the chance to work with large-scale datasets, leverage advanced analytics techniques, and influence critical pricing decisions. If you are passionate about data-driven decision-making and thrive in a collaborative, innovative environment, we would love to hear from you.End to End delivery You’ll be responsible for scoping the brief with stakeholders, data gathering, feature engineering, & model delivery right through to stakeholder model presentation. Data analysis and modelling: Utilise statistical and experimental techniques, predictive modelling, and machine learning algorithms to analyse large and complex datasets related to pricing, promotions, sales, and customer behaviour. Extract actionable insights to support pricing decision-making. Price optimisation capability Develop a price optimisation tool to help us to optimise pricing for profit or revenue growth, based on measured elasticity at either a category or SKU level. This could take several forms (Regression based, Experimental/Reinforcement Learning, Bayesian) but you’d be responsible ultimately for the success of the model. Commercial forecasting support Develop forecasting models to predict pricing trends, demand patterns, and market dynamics. Perform scenario analysis to evaluate the impact of different pricing strategies and external factors on business performance. Pricing automation and deployment Using Databricks, Python & Power BI, look to automate time consuming pricing processes including but not limited to: web scraping, price indexing and elasticity analysis. Data visualisation and reporting Create visually compelling reports and dashboards to communicate complex pricing insights to stakeholders at various levels of the organization. Present findings and recommendations to senior management, highlighting opportunities for revenue growth and competitive advantage. Key Skills A degree or equivalent in a science or quantitative subjectStrong analytics expertise: We primarily operate within a Microsoft Azure, Databricks, SQL, Python, Pyspark & Powerbi data environment. So, these skills will be very important.Pricing experience is desiredExperience of modelling, data management, information systems and related softwareSuperior written and oral communication skillsAbility to confidently present insight to non technical audiences at their levelAbility to work with low supervision and take key modelling decisions – self driven and focused.