Last July Dominic Cummings launched a recruitment drive for a new £135,000-a-year data expert to set up a “skunkworks” inside No. 10 – an analytical unit designed to “drive forward the quantitative revolution”:

“The current plan is to establish a data engineering team, data science team, a skunkworks and an analytical deep dive unit,”

It seems Cummings’s influence over Downing Street hasn’t been scrapped entirely following the chief adviser’s departure last year. Guido spots No. 10 is now hiring for two additional roles within the “10 Data Science” (10DS) unit, with the aim of contributing data-led advice to the government on issues like HS2 and achieving Net Zero. The two roles could even see security’s ‘5 years residency in the UK’ requirement overlooked provided they want the lucky applicant enough…