Foundation Scientist - Earth Observation Data Assimilation

The following content displays a map of the jobs location - Exeter or Reading

Job Reference metoffice/TP/1251/1083

Permanent

Working Hours:

37

Location (City/Town):

Exeter or Reading

Closing Date:

29/01/2026

Profession:

Science

Region / Division:

UK Region

Careers website category:

Science

We’re looking for an exceptional Foundation Scientist - Earth Observation Data Assimilation to help us make a difference to our planet.

As our Foundation Scientist - Earth Observation Data Assimilation, the job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home.

This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work a minimum of 30 hours per week and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a job share . Our people are at the heart of what we do and we'll do our best to agree a working pattern that works for everyone.

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We’re a force for good - focusing on our environmental and social impact
• We’reexperts by nature - always learning and developing to do things better
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart of decision - making
• We’rebetter together - understanding partnerships and inclusivity make usgreater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for our customers

Our world of expertise

The Met Office has embarked on an exciting programme, to redesign its operational forecasting capability for future high-performance computing (HPC) platforms.

The current Met Office Data Assimilation (DA) system is not expected to be efficient across the range of possible alternative HPC solutions likely to be available on the 2025 timescale.

The new software is being developed within the Joint Effort for Data assimilation Integration (JEDI) framework from the Joint Centre for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA).

The Met Office provides an opportunity for talented scientists to apply their skills to real-world problems, with impacts upon services that reach all our lives.

Within the organisation, you will work in the team working on the Assimilation of Earth observations, part of the Satellite and Surface Assimilation (SSA) section of Weather Science.

Data assimilation is the process of combining observational data with output from a numerical model to produce a statistically optimal estimate of the initial conditions for weather prediction.

The Met Office is at the forefront of DA applications in operational Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and it is an exciting time to be working in this area.

Perhaps the greatest challenge for modern DA is the need to consider how these complex DA algorithms will be run efficiently on the potentially radically different supercomputer architectures needed to maintain progress over the next decade .

As part of our approach to growing expertise in DA and JEDI,the successful applicants will also have exciting secondment opportunities to spend time working in Boulder, Colorado, at the JCSDA.

We are seeking talented and creative individuals to join our surface-based and upper-air observation team to contribute to the research and development on the assimilation of a wide range of weather observations (e.g.surface automated weather stations, upper-air instruments like radiosondes, and surface-based remotely sensed data such as weather radar) for initialising operational weather forecast models on the next generation of supercomputers.

The successful applicants will become members of our research and development team and will apply scientific and technical knowledge to contribute to the success of the Met Office.

Ou…