11755 - Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer

Location: National* | Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working | Contract type: Permanent

Grade: SEO | Salary: London £49,325 – £53,081 (allowance up to £7,440) | National £42,914 – £46,182 (allowance up to £9,424)

The Role

We’re recruiting a Senior Data Engineer to join the warm and collaborative Data & Analytics Engineering team at the Ministry of Justice. This role aligns with the Government Digital and Data Framework and offers the opportunity to work with leading cloud technology to shape how data supports public sector decision‑making.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and build robust, scalable, automated data flows connecting operational systems, analytics, and business intelligence (BI) systems.
• Identify opportunities to reuse and re‑engineer data flows for scaling and repeatable use.
• Write efficient ETL (extract, transform, load) scripts and code to optimise performance.
• Collaborate with data users to translate business needs into technical requirements.
• Deploy solutions using AWS services, infrastructure‑as‑code, and sustainable practices.
• Develop and optimise code, tools, and services that enable effective data utilisation.
• Design and maintain technical documentation and promote best practices.
• Respond to incident reports, prioritise investigations, and develop novel solutions for stakeholders.
• Support Analytical Platform users and initiate team‑building and development initiatives.
• Line‑manage a junior colleague.

Person Specification – Essential

• Experience working in a technical team, preferably using Python and SQL.
• Strong technical skills in Python, SQL, software development lifecycle, testing (e.g., pytest), version control (e.g., git), and CI/CD (e.g., GitHub Actions).
• Experience with diverse data sources and data wrangling, analysis, or manipulation.
• Excellent communication skills, translating user needs into technical requirements.
• Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance.

Benefits

• 37 hours per week with flexible working options (home, part‑time, job‑sharing, compressed hours).
• £1,000 per person learning budget, access to conferences, vocational programmes, and e‑learning.
• 10% time dedicated to development and growth.
• Generous civil service pension with 28.97% employer contribution.
• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and a privilege day for the King’s birthday; 5 additional days after five years.
• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies (up to 26 weeks at full pay).
• Wellbeing support, including access to Calm app.
• Bike loans up to £2,500, season ticket loans, childcare and eye‑care vouchers.
• 5 days volunteering paid leave, free membership to BCS, and subsidised on‑site gym in some offices.

How to Apply

Applicants must submit an anonymised CV and a cover letter detailing how they meet the requirements above.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.