Chief Statistician – Digital Trials & AI Methodology

Location: London Bridge (Hybrid, minimum 3–4 days on site, with regular presence in South East London)

Contract: 3-year academic contract with renewal

BioTalent has partnered with a globally recognised academic research programme to appoint a Principal / Senior Statistician into a large-scale, multi-country initiative at the forefront of digital trials, AI, and clinical research innovation.

This is a leadership role focused on shaping how next-generation trials are designed and delivered. You will not be stepping into a traditional academic post. This is about real-world impact, influencing programme direction, and setting methodological standards across a global consortium.

Opportunity

You will take ownership of methodological strategy across a £35M research programme spanning 60,000 participants across multiple countries, focused on maternal and early childhood health.

Working directly with senior clinical and scientific leadership, you will help define how statistical, epidemiological, and machine learning approaches are applied to complex, real-world datasets and digital trial environments.

This is a rare opportunity to influence how decentralised and AI-enabled trials are built at scale.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Set the methodological direction for observational and interventional digital trials
• Lead study design, including decentralised and AI-enabled trial frameworks
• Drive innovation across biostatistics, epidemiology, and machine learning
• Act as a senior advisor across a global, multi-partner research consortium
• Oversee development and validation of digital health and AI-based interventions
• Ensure alignment with regulatory, ethical, and governance frameworks such as GDPR and GCP
• Lead and mentor researchers, building capability across statistical and computational methods
• Contribute to high-impact publications, grant funding, and external visibility
• Influence best practice and standards in digital and AI-enabled clinical research
• Represent the programme externally across international forums

What They’re Looking For

• PhD in Biostatistics, Epidemiology, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology or similar
• Strong experience designing or leading clinical or observational studies
• Proven ability to operate at a strategic and methodological level
• Strong programming capability in R and/or Python
• Experience working with large-scale clinical, biological, or digital health datasets
• Confidence influencing senior stakeholders across academic, clinical, and technical teams

Nice to have:

• Experience with decentralised or digital trials
• Exposure to machine learning methods in healthcare
• Background in multi-partner or international research programmes

Why This Role

• Genuine influence over study design and programme direction, not just analysis delivery
• Work at the intersection of clinical research, AI, and global health
• Access to one of the most ambitious digital trial datasets in academia
• Long-term opportunity, structured as a 3-year academic contract with strong renewal expectation and clear pathways into extended or permanent roles

If you’re looking for a role where you can shape how trials are run, not just analyse them, this is worth a conversation.

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