About the Collingwood Football Club   

Collingwood Football Club (CFC) was founded in 1892. 

Local residents, community and business leaders and politicians all hoped that having their own football club could help bring a measure of pride to a downtrodden suburb. 

In 2026, CFC is one of the great icons of Australian sport. Our history spans 130 years, 16 premierships and more finals appearances than any other club. Most importantly, Collingwood has grown from being a football club to a sports club with a commitment to our community. 

The Opportunity 

Collingwood continues to evolve as one of the league’s most innovative football clubs by using data, AI and insight to support players, coaches and staff in their development, preparation and decision-making. 

To help realise this ambition, we are seeking a forward-thinking Football Data Scientist to develop new ways of measuring, understanding and improving football performance across the Club. 

Reporting to the Head of Football Analysis & Insights, this role will advance Collingwood’s analytical capability by building models, metrics and tools that help teams and decision makers understand the game through a data-informed lens. The role will generate football-specific insights across team performance, opposition profiling, competition trends, player development and broader strategic priorities. 

Key responsibilities: 

The role is expected to combine technical data science capability with strong football curiosity, helping identify the right performance questions, design robust analytical approaches and turn findings into tools that can be embedded in football workflows 

Process 

• Design and deliver analytical models, metrics and decision-support tools that directly shape football decisions. 

• Balance analytical sophistication with interpretability and simplicity, ensuring models and tools are trusted and adopted by the coaches and staff who use them 

• Lead exploratory research projects with a high degree of autonomy, investigating emerging trends in team and player performance, opposition profiling, player development and team preparation. 

• Maintain high standards of statistical rigour, ensuring any findings that are communicated to stakeholders have been appropriately validated. 

• Provide match-day analytical support to coaching staff and analysts, including real-time feedback and support for relevant game-day technology. Weekend work will be required. 

• Continuously explore new datasets, practices and technologies that strengthen Collingwood’s analytical capability and encourage a continuous learning environment. 

People 

• Work closely with staff to deeply understand football context, translating complex problems into well-defined analytical questions. 

• Build and manage strong relationships across the football department, including analysis, coaching, development, recruiting, sports sciences and football executive. 

• Collaborate across the football department to embed data-informed insights into existing workflows and decision-making processes. 

• Work closely with the centralised Data team to integrate models, new metrics and reporting into reliable, scalable decision-support tools. 

Experience/Qualification 

Essential experience and qualifications for the role: 

• A bachelor’s or master’s degree in a quantitative field such as mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience. 

• Proficiency in a programming language suited to statistical modelling, with Python preferred. 

• Highly skilled in statistical modelling, machine learning and advanced analytical techniques, with the ability to select appropriate methods for practical football problems. 

• Experience using AI coding agents and modern development tooling to improve productivity, experimentation and quality of analytical outputs. 

• Practical data science experience, using real-world data to provide actionable insights. 

• Excellent communication, stakeholder management and presentation skills. 

Skills and experience which are highly desirable but not essential:  

• Experience developing models or metrics in a high-performance sport environment. 

• Understanding of AFL concepts, terminology and football workflows, but not essential. 

• Experience taking analytical work from prototype through to a model or workflow adopted by end users. 

• Demonstrated ability to build credibility and influence with non-technical stakeholders. 

• Experience with cloud-based data platforms, version control or reproducible analytical workflows. 

Football Club’s are fast-paced environments but you will engrain yourself into the Collingwood culture, remain agile, adaptable, and consistently champion our Company values of DO BETTER, SIDE BY SIDE, A NEST FOR ALL and FLY HIGHER. 

 What we offer As a valued staff member of our Sporting Club you will be a part of a fun, inclusive and flexible work environment: 

• Access to state of art High Performance Gym Facility 

• Access to Professional Development and Learning Development Courses 

• Access to tickets to all AFL and AFLW matches 

• Access to exclusive partner offers, the likes of Nike, Emirates, AIA Vitality, La Trobe, CUB Economy, Business Class with Emirates, TaylorMade and KGM 

• Opportunities to support with Collingwood community outreach and volunteer programs (Magpie Nest Cafe) 

• Behind the scenes access to Match-Day, including the ability to support in on-ground activations  

• Additional 'Seasonal Leave', on top of your usual Annual Leave 

To Apply 

If you are interested in this position, please send through your CV and cover letter that addresses why you are interested in working with the Collingwood Football Club, how your skills/experience would qualify for the position, and how you would contribute to the culture of the organisation. 

Please send this application to careers@collingwoodfc.com.au. Applications close COB Friday 16 October 2026 (however, we may close this earlier if we receive a large volume of applications). 

Please keep reading… 

Research shows that while men apply to jobs when they meet an average of 60% of the criteria, women and other marginalized folks tend to only apply when they check every box. 

So if you think you have what it takes, but don't necessarily meet every single point above, please still get in touch. We'd love to have a chat and see if you could be a great fit. 

We believe in being a Nest For All – we champion respect, diversity and inclusion to make our Club a safe and welcoming place for all. The Collingwood Football Club is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from suitably qualified and diverse candidates. We provide a welcoming, safe and flexible approach to work and provide an environment that benefits from and enables the best from everyone. 

As an organisation we are committed to protecting children and young people from harm. It is essential that anyone involved with the Collingwood Football Club understands their responsibility in relation to child safety. Our organization requires all applicants to obtain a ‘Working with Children Check’ prior to appointment. 

To learn more about working at Collingwood Football Club and our values, please visit https://www.collingwoodfc.com.au/news/76/careers