Head of Data Engineering in London

Head of Data Engineering in London

London Full-Time 63000 - 77000 £ / year (est.) Hybrid
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Lead a data engineering team to modernise data sourcing and delivery for investment solutions.
  • Company: M&G, a trusted name in savings and investments with over 175 years of innovation.
  • Benefits: Flexible working arrangements, supportive workplace adjustments, and opportunities for career growth.
  • Other info: Join a dynamic team focused on building AI-ready data products and simplifying legacy platforms.
  • Why this job: Shape the future of data engineering and make a real impact in the financial services sector.
  • Qualifications: Significant experience in data engineering and leadership within Asset Management or Financial Services.

The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.

At M&G, our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work.

With a heritage dating back more than 175 years, we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments, combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.

Our two distinct operating segments, Asset Management and Life, work together to provide access to balanced, long-term investment and savings solutions.

Through telling it like it is, owning it now and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent.

We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

The Role

Data and AI are at the heart of how we plan to grow our Asset Management business.

We are modernising how data is sourced, engineered and consumed across the firm.

The goal is trusted, reusable data products that support investment decisions, client reporting, regulatory submissions and a growing range of AI use cases.

As Head of Data Engineering , you will report to the Director of Data, AI & Analytics and lead a growing data engineering team across London and India.

You will own how we ingest, transform, and deliver data.

You will be moving us from fragmented, pipeline-by-pipeline delivery to a modern, governed architecture built around data products.

This is a data engineering leadership role, not a general engineering management role.

We want a practitioner who has built modern data platforms hands‑on.

You should know how to use modern data technologies to design scalable solutions that deliver real business outcomes.

What You will Do

  • Shape a modern data platform
    Own the design, build and optimisation of ingestion, transformation and data provisioning on our Snowflake-centric platform.
  • Implement a medallion architecture, with clear standards for promoting data from raw to curated to consumption‑ready layers.
  • Set data engineering standards for ELT patterns, orchestration, data modelling, testing, Data Ops, CI/CD for data pipelines and observability.
  • Build reusable ingestion, transformation and consumption patterns that speed up access to new data for the business, whether through BI, APIs, data sharing or AI.
  • Take a pragmatic, outcome‑led approach, balancing the right data architecture with early business value.
  • Deliver governed, trusted data products
    Make data cataloguing, data quality, lineage and data observability core parts of how every data product is built and run, rather than controls added after delivery.

Include data contracts, metadata and certification standards in every data product, so each one is discoverable, trusted and auditable.

Ensure data products and pipelines are secure and compliant by design, embedding identity and role‑based access control, secrets management, encryption, data classification, retention and privacy controls into engineering standards.

  • Build and lead a high‑performing data engineering team
    Lead, inspire and mentor data engineers across the UK and India, and set the standard for how we deliver.

Develop the team through regular coaching, clear career pathways and meaningful opportunities to build technical and leadership capability.

Shift the team's focus from building individual pipelines to delivering reusable data products, underpinned by strong data modelling, data quality and lineage practices.

  • Build AI‑ready data and bring AI into data engineering
    Partner with Data Product, Analytics and AI teams to implement semantic models, ensuring business definitions and relationships are consistently represented in the engineered data products.

Apply AI across data engineering, from data quality monitoring and anomaly detection to automated documentation and AI‑assisted code, with appropriate human oversight.

  • Simplify the estate and retire legacy platforms
    Lead the technical migration from legacy data platforms and point‑to‑point data feeds onto the strategic platform.

Consolidate duplicated pipelines and fragmented data stores into a smaller set of trusted, reusable data products.

Reduce technical debt and keep the data estate simple, supportable and cost‑efficient.

Build cost awareness into data engineering by designing efficient pipelines and data products and by optimising compute and storage costs as core part of delivery.

What You will Bring

  • Significant experience in data engineering, including experience leading data engineering teams within Asset Management or Financial Services.
  • Hands‑on experience leading Snowflake platform implementation, ideally in an asset management setting.
  • Deep technical knowledge of modern data platform architecture, including medallion and lakehouse patterns, ELT and dimensional or domain data modelling.
  • A track record of designing and delivering data products, including semantic layer implementation for AI and analytics use.
  • Practical experience embe
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Head of Data Engineering in London employer: Prudential UK Services

M&G is an exceptional employer that prioritises employee wellbeing and professional growth, offering a generous benefits package including a valuable pension scheme, extensive annual leave, and comprehensive family support policies. With a commitment to inclusivity and flexibility, M&G fosters a collaborative work culture where employees can thrive and contribute meaningfully to the company's long-standing legacy in asset management and insurance. Located in a dynamic environment, this role as a Reporting Development Analyst provides the opportunity to engage with diverse teams and enhance financial reporting processes while enjoying a supportive workplace.

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Contact Details:

Prudential UK Services Recruitment Team

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We think you need these skills to ace Head of Data Engineering in London

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