Barb is the UK’s standard for understanding what people watch — across broadcast, video-on-demand, and video-sharing platforms. Backed by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, the IPA, and Sky, Barb has been the source of official TV viewing figures for decades.
Barb is uniquely placed to empower transformation of the UK TV and advertising ecosystem through reliable and accurate data.
These data fulfil three purposes:
- To support decisions that are made in the making and distribution of great programmes.
- To support the planning and buying of ad campaigns and informing on brand and sales outcomes.
- To inform how broadcasters and other media services operate in the public interest.
As the media industry evolves, so does Barb. We've expanded our measurement beyond traditional panels to incorporate large-scale online data and streaming services. Through our campaign reporting tools, Barb also provides the full picture of cross-platform pre and post campaign reporting.
Our hybrid approach combines people-based panel data with census-level device data to deliver inclusive measurement of total identified viewing across all platforms, services, and devices. This empowers broadcasters, advertisers, and regulators to make more better, fairer, more informed decisions.
Overview
We’re seeking a Junior Data Scientist to help build the future of UK audience measurement. This is a unique opportunity to join a small, expert team of 13, reporting directly to the Head of Data Science and working on foundational systems used by major media organisations across the UK.
You can expect to work on high-impact projects including:
- The Barb Data Hub, a centralised Snowflake data warehouse serving as the single source of truth for Barb data. You’ll help develop a library of reusable analysis tools.
- Barb’s API and Direct Cloud Sharing – ensuring users can apply Barb’s complex methodologies efficiently and accurately.
- Barb Panel Plus, a new system integrating “return path data” from TV sets and set-top boxes with existing panel data.
These projects pose exciting challenges from the point of view of data engineering, statistical modelling, and software development. This role will be of interest to someone starting their career as a data scientist and excited by the prospect of finding brilliant solutions to these problems. The role would be well-suited to someone who is a talented coder, logical thinker, enjoys working with data, has an interest in the TV industry, and is looking to grow into their career as a data scientist.
Key responsibilities
- Work closely with the Barb executive team and partners to understand and implement the Barb Calculation Methodology, which is a complex set of conventions and algorithms that describe how to use Barb panel data to calculate standard audience metrics.
- Build and maintain a shared library of reusable data analysis tools for Barb’s users and suppliers.
- Support users of Barb’s API and Direct Cloud Share, ensuring they produce correct and industry-standard outputs.
- Translate parts of the methodology into reliable, production-ready Python code for use across Barb’s systems.
- Contribute to the evaluation and development of statistical and machine learning models for return path data integration.
- Develop ELT pipelines and modelling solutions for data integration projects.
Qualifications
- A degree in a quantitative discipline (e.g., STEM, Data Science, Computer Science, Economics).
- Good working knowledge of Python and SQL.
- Experience with Python data packages (e.g., pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn) preferred.
- Strong mathematical and statistical foundation.
- Ability to think critically, communicate clearly, and collaborate with others.
Experience
The ideal candidate will have some experience with:
- Data engineering; working with databases, building infrastructure for moving, storing, and processing data.
- Modelling; analysing data using statistical or machine-learning techniques
Preferred:
- Experience with Snowflake, or other cloud data platforms such as Databricks or BigQuery.
- Familiarity with Snowpark or similar distributed computing frameworks such as Spark.
For graduates, the above could include projects done at university or during an internship.
Benefits
Base salary will reflect the responsibilities of the role and be commensurate with experience. Barb offers a discretionary bonus scheme alongside the following benefits.
- Office in central London – with hybrid working options
- Pension contributions up to a maximum of 9% of salary — employees’ contribution matched +3%
- Five weeks paid holiday — rising to six weeks after 10 years’ service
- Holiday purchase scheme — purchase up to five additional days in any calendar year
- Group Life Assurance — four times annual salary
- Group Income Protection — 75% of salary after 26 weeks absence
- Enhanced pay for parental/adoption leave after 18 months of service — 13 weeks at 100% of basic salary followed by 26 weeks at the statutory rate
