Nikhil Desai
Experience

Urban analytics, research and consulting roles from 2018 to today.

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Nov 2025 – Present
Aretian Urban Analytics
London, UK

Senior Data Scientist & Software Developer

Building digital twins of entire cities, including a climate model for Barcelona that scores every corner of the region for heat and flood risk.

Apr 2026 – Present
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK

Volunteer Researcher, Inst. for New Economic Thinking

Working out how fast the cost of clean technology will fall, so the UK can plan its climate policy around realistic numbers.

Jan 2025 – Dec 2025
Norman Foster Institute
Madrid, Spain

Data Scientist

Won a €52,000 grant to study sustainable growth in Cape Town, and built models that identify where the city has room to add housing and how well its public spaces work.

Apr 2024 – Sept 2024
Space Syntax Ltd.
London, UK

Data Science Researcher

Wrote a research paper showing how the shape of a city's streets predicts where its shops and businesses cluster, work strong enough to earn a full-time job offer.

Mar 2021 – Aug 2023
Baringa Partners
London, UK

Management Consultant (Data & Analytics)

Pushing the limits of Excel

Sept 2020 – Mar 2021
Q5 Partners
London, UK

Management Consultant (Intern)

Worked on a restructuring and organisational design project for National Grid, a utilities company with £14bn in annual revenue.

Sept 2018 – Oct 2019
Boston Consulting Group
London, UK

Mobility Analyst

Researched how self-driving cars and smart city technology could change the way people get around.

Education
M.Sc Spatial Data Science, Distinction

University College London · 2023–2024

M.A (Hons) Economics, First Class

University of Edinburgh · 2016–2020

Working on cities, climate or spatial data? Get in touch.

ndesai.career@gmail.com
LinkedIn GitHub