Data ethicist
Find out what a data ethicist in government does and the skills you need to do the role at each level.
Last updated 31 March 2023 — See all updates
Contents
What a data ethicist does
A data ethicist assesses the societal effect of technology and data, and produces recommendations for other data professionals. This involves thinking about fairness, accountability, the law, moral dilemmas and risks in the creation of technology and data products and policies.
In this role, you will:
- provide research and expertise on data ethics
- enable others to implement data ethics best practice in their work (for instance by providing training, advising data science teams or demonstrating how to apply ethical principles in practice through examples and case studies)
- communicate effectively to explain and raise awareness of data ethics issues, and to listen to, convene, advise and mediate between various parts of the organisation
- help people to ask questions, express concerns and discuss ethical dilemmas
Data ethicist role levels
There are 2 data ethicist role levels, from data ethics lead to head of data ethics.
The typical responsibilities and skills for each role level are described in the sections below. You can use this to identify the skills you need to progress in your career, or simply to learn more about each role in the Government Digital and Data profession.
1. Data ethics lead
A data ethics lead supports the head of data ethics to enable others across the organisation to understand data ethics and implement best practice in their work.
This role level is often performed at the Civil Service job grade of:
- G7 (Grade 7)
Skill | Description |
---|---|
Analysis and synthesis (data ethics) Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Applied knowledge of social sciences Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Communicating between the technical and non-technical Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Product ownership (data ethics) Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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Stakeholder relationship management Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
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2. Head of data ethics
The head of data ethics leads the development and implementation of organisational data ethics policies.
This role level is often performed at the Civil Service job grade of:
- G6 (Grade 6)
Skill | Description |
---|---|
Analysis and synthesis (data ethics) Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Applied knowledge of social sciences Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Communicating between the technical and non-technical Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Level: practitioner Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Product ownership (data ethics) Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Stakeholder relationship management Level: expert Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels |
You can:
|
Roles that share data ethicist skills
Role | Shared skills |
---|---|
Data architect | |
Data governance manager | |
Service designer | |
Analytics engineer | |
Application operations engineer |
Updates
Published 30 August 2022
Last updated 31 March 2023
31 March 2023
- The ‘problem management (data ethics)’ skill has been renamed simply ‘problem management’. The 'problem management' skill level for head of data ethics has been corrected from ‘expert’ to ‘practitioner’ (with no change to the skill description itself).
30 August 2022
- First published.