Principle Data Scientist - AI & Data Strategy

Senior / Principal Data Scientist AI & Data Strategy

Compass Group Internal Audit

Compass Group

Compass Group is a FTSE 20 and Fortune Global 500 business — the world’s leading contract catering, hospitality and support services provider. We operate in over 20 countries, across more than 50,000 client locations, serving over 5.5 billion meals a year. Food is our passion. Increasingly, data and AI are how we protect it, sharpen it and stay ahead.

The opportunity

We’re reinventing how Internal Audit works — moving from sampling and hindsight to data-led, continuous, forward-looking assurance. This is a rare chance to help build that capability from the ground up, not just run it. You’ll sit in a small, high-profile Group team with a direct line of sight to the very top of a FTSE 20, and the autonomy to make a real mark.

What you’ll do

• Help shape and deliver Internal Audit’s AI and data strategy — and bring it to life.
• Build machine learning and AI models that turn full data populations into sharper, earlier risk insight.
• Hunt out fraud, error and control gaps with anomaly detection — across 100% of the data, not just samples.
• Stand up the pipelines, dashboards and tooling that power continuous auditing across the whole audit lifecycle.
• Bring auditors on the journey — coaching, training and raising data literacy across the team.
• Help us assure how the business itself uses AI — model risk, fairness, transparency and governance.
• Be our voice on what ‘good’ looks like, benchmarking against the best in the industry.

What you’ll bring

• A quantitative mind and a track record of shipping analytics, ML or AI solutions in the real world.
• Fluency in Python or R and SQL, and BI tools such as Power BI.
• Hands-on machine learning, statistical modelling and AI — plus the judgement to use them responsibly.
• Comfort with modern cloud and data platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP or Snowflake) and building data pipelines.
• The rare knack of explaining the technical simply — and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Curiosity about risk, processes and controls (internal audit experience welcome, but not essential).
• A data, analytics or audit certification (e.g. CISA, CIA) is a bonus, not a must.

Why join us

• Build a capability, don’t just maintain one — genuine scope to innovate.
• Small, high-profile team with visibility at the most senior levels of a global business.
• The backing, data and autonomy to do work that actually changes how we operate.
• Hybrid working and the flexibility to balance time in the office and at home.
• Career pathways across Internal Audit and the wider global business.

Internal