Hi, I’m Nic! I’m an independent R consultant with a background in data science and software engineering. I specialise in helping organisations work with R in production environments, whether that means designing and building tools from scratch, strengthening fragile workflows, or planning a move away from legacy systems.
If you’re interested in hiring me to work on a project, you can get in touch by emailing me at: nic@ncdatalabs.com.
Bio
I have a PhD in Statistics, and have been working in R for 15 years.
During my career, I’ve worked across multiple industries, including pharma, public health, academia, and startups, and on projects encompassing everything from teaching hundreds of new programmers how to work with R, maintaining popular open source packages, to delving into the complexities of deploying R code in production environments where scalability matters.
I’ve built dashboards and internal tools supporting hundreds of concurrent users, deployed across the NHS, and have developed and led workshops at major R conferences like Posit Conf.
I am one of the core maintainers of the Apache Arrow R project, acting as package maintainer, and authoring Scaling Up with R and Arrow - available online and published by CRC Press in 2025.
Services
Production R Code Consulting and Training
Many data science tools start life as quick prototypes. Everything works at first, but as usage grows they can become slow, fragile, or hard to maintain.
I help turn these into reliable, production-quality tools. That might mean adding tests and safeguards, refactoring overcomplicated code, or setting up CI/CD pipelines and good release practices.
My focus is on practical improvements that make your codebase sustainable long-term, ensuring it’s robust enough for business-critical use, without unnecessary complexity.
I also have trained hundreds of people in getting started with R, and offer courses and workshops for a variety of team setups.
Migrating to R
Switching from proprietary tools to R can cut costs, improve flexibility, and give you reproducible, future-proof workflows. Migrations are never simple though - translating legacy code, bringing staff up to speed, and keeping business running takes considerable planning.
I can help by analysing existing workflows, building R replacements (packages, Shiny apps, data products), and training teams in the skills they need. My approach covers both the technical transition and the people side of things.
General R Consulting and Training
I’m also available for more general R and data science consulting and team support. Whether you need help with an one-off project or regular support on a monthly retainer, get in touch and we can explore how I can help.
Projects
Apache Arrow
I am one of the maintainers of the Arrow R package, where I work on feature development, bugfixes, release management, and more.
Scaling Up with R and Arrow
In 2025 I published Scaling Up with R and Arrow with CRC Press.
