Job Description

Salary: Grade 7 (£37,099 – £44,263 p.a. pro rata depending on experience)  - 80% FTE

This role will be based on the university campus, with scope for it to be undertaken in a hybrid manner. We are also open to discussing flexible working arrangements.

Are you an ambitious researcher interested in data analysis, urban dynamics and neighbourhood change? Do you want to further your career in one of the UK's leading research-intensive Universities?

You will work on a project, funded by the UKRI’s Economic and Social Research Council, called Integrated Analysis of Social Media and Hedonic House Prices for Neighbourhood Change (INTEGRATE). The project is conducting advanced data analysis and modelling to quantify neighbourhood changes over time by linking social media data (SMD) with house price models. 

The aim is the establish innovative methods for analysing neighbourhood spatio-temporal dynamics, with a focus on identifying gentrification patterns and their impact on local housing markets. Specifically, the project will capture perceived neighbourhood characteristics from SMD using advanced text engineering and natural language processing methods. It is doing this using 3 global parallel case studies in the UK, New Zealand, and Vietnam, and collaborating with researchers in those countries. 

The project needs a data scientist to extract and analyse gentrification related concepts from SMD, and to link these to classic hedonic house price model data to inform on social dynamics, patterns and processes within cities. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to join the investigators on a research visit to Vietnam as part of the project.

The research team is led by Prof Lex Comber and will be located within the School of Geography and the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics (LIDA), both of which are emerging as international centres of excellence in agent-based modelling. The city of Leeds is already recognised as a hub for big data analytics in business, health care and academic research. In addition, the University is a partner in the Alan Turing Institute, which is the UK’s national institute for artificial intelligence and data science, offering exciting opportunities to for researchers to engage with scientific leaders from a range of fields.

Please note that this post may be suitable for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker visa route but first-time applicants might need to qualify for salary concessions. For more information please visit: www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa. 

For research and academic posts, we will consider eligibility under the Global Talent visa. For more information please visit: https://www.gov.uk/global-talent 

What we offer in return

And much more!  

If you are looking for a role that will enhance your skills in data analytics and knowledge of social process in diverse urban environments, apply today.

To explore the post further or for any queries you may have, please contact: 

Professor Lex Comber | Email: [email protected]

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