Position Title:  Data Scientist

Data Scientists

(Fixed term 3 year Contract, Pay Class 10)

African Climate and Development Initiative

Faculty of Science www.acdi.uct.ac.za

The African Climate and Development Initiative (ACDI) is looking to appoint Data Scientists to support work with our researchers, students and collaborators on diverse climate change and related research projects.  ACDI is based at the University of Cape Town and supports research and training on climate change and sustainable development.

If you have excellent data science skills and want to apply these working with large climate, environmental, socio-economic and related datasets to answer climate and sustainability research questions, this is the job for you.  You will work closely with ACDI and affiliated UCT researchers on data infrastructure design and development, advanced data analysis and machine learning, application of existing software and codes, development of tools and applications, data visualization, and provide data science consultations and advice.

These are three-year fixed term contract appointments, extendable for further years, depending on performance in the position and availability of funding.

Requirements for the position:

• NQF 9 (Masters) degree or equivalent postgraduate diploma qualification in an appropriate field: data science, information systems, computer science, climate science, quantitative ecology/environmental science, statistics, econometrics, bioinformatics, epidemiology or a closely related field.
• At least three years of post-NQF9 qualification experience in data science.

• Skills in data management, data processing, coding for advanced analysis, modelling and/or machine learning (at least 2 years’ experience)
• Provision of data science services to support the research enterprise (such as developing and improving data processing and analysis workflows, working with researchers to identify and implement data science analyses for specific research questions) (at least 1.5 years’ experience).

• Ability to undertake advanced coding in both R and Python (3 years total experience, 1.5 years in each)
• Skilled in command line / shell environments to schedule and execute tasks and workflows
• Skilled in the use of online code collaboration platforms such as GitHub (2 years) 

• Experience working with large spatial and/or temporal datasets (1.5 years)

• Experience in data quality management.

The following will be advantageous skills and experience:

• Tertiary level training (e.g. BSc) and/or several years work experience in one or more relevant subjects to climate and development, such as climate or atmospheric science, oceanography, ecology, hydrology, health sciences, environmental economics, conservation science.
• Experience working in cloud computing and/or high-performance computing environments/contexts, including parallel computing.

• Experience in providing training and/or mentoring in data science to researchers and/or analysts.

• Experience in installing and running climate, hydrological or other process-based models.

Responsibilities:

• Reporting to senior data scientist and research lab leads at ACDI.

• Assisting with maintaining links to data science functions in the wider university, including the AI initiative and eResearch. 

• Advising researchers on data science tools and approaches available for their research.

• Management of research project data and data sharing, including setting up standard procedures for data processing and management, data quality control, and liaising with researcher on quality and errors.
• Coordination and management of collaborative coding and data environments.

• Sourcing and updating datasets, converting these and merging with other datasets, including for regional and multiregional analyses in line with complex analytic proposals. 

• Processing, transformation, integration, analysis, visualisation and interpretation of data using appropriate programming languages and tools, including delivery via web applications where needed. 

• Create interactive visualisations and dissemination tools to support communications for different target audiences such as developing web applications to showcase data and research findings. 

• Providing data science support to a varied portfolio of research projects, including code development. 

• Supporting senior data scientists in the maintenance of software packages across multiple operating system environments, including parallel/high-performance computing systems. 

• Contributing to conceptualization of research questions / projects, including experimental and data analysis designs; data science budgeting; technical reporting to funders; research papers. 

• Advising students and postdoctoral fellows on data science, and (potentially) co-supervising Masters students. 

The annual cost of employment for 2025, including benefits is between R639 581 and R752 447.

For queries, please email Brandon Perumaul (brandon.perumaul@uct.ac.za)

Please click the "apply" on the UCT Jobs site (View) button to create a candidate profile and submit your application.

Please complete/attach the following to your profile before submitting your application:

• • Cover letter explaining how you meet the job requirements
  • Curriculum Vitae (CV)

An application which does not comply with the above requirements will be regarded as incomplete. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and may be required to do a competency assessment.

Any enquiries around the application process to be addressed to Ms Abigail Dixon at abigail.dixon@uct.ac.za or 021 650 1673

Website:         www.acdi.uct.ac.za

Closing date: 16 January 2026

UCT is a designated employer and is committed to the pursuit of excellence, diversity and redress in achieving its equity targets in accordance with the Employment Equity Plan of the University and its Employment Equity goals and targets. Preference will be given to candidates from the under-represented designated groups. Our Employment Equity Policy is available at https://uct.ac.za/media/9482.

UCT reserves the right not to appoint.