At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and maintain data pipelines for real-time decision-making in the railway sector.
- Company: Join a forward-thinking railway company focused on innovation and efficiency.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible working options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Diverse and inclusive workplace committed to supporting all employees.
- Why this job: Make a tangible impact on railway operations and customer experience through data engineering.
- Qualifications: Experience in data engineering, SQL, Python, and cloud platforms is essential.
The predicted salary is between 45000 - 55000 £ per year.
Design, develop, and maintain data pipelines, architecture, and analytics platforms to enable real‑time decision‑making, operational efficiency, and strategic planning across railway functions. The role supports key business areas including fleet reliability, customer insight, financial modelling, and predictive maintenance.
Principal Accountabilities
- Build scalable data pipelines using ETL/ELT frameworks to ingest structured and unstructured data from operational and enterprise systems.
- Develop and optimise data models for performance, clarity, and downstream analytics alignment.
- Maintain secure and compliant data warehouses, lakes, and marts supporting diverse business domains.
- Connect railway systems (e.g., engineering logs, depot systems, CRM, ticketing platforms) into unified data environments.
- Automate data flows and refresh schedules using orchestration tools to support real‑time monitoring and reporting.
- Collaborate with IT and system owners to resolve integration issues, data gaps, or quality inconsistencies.
- Apply data validation, cleansing, and transformation rules to ensure accuracy and reliability.
- Support metadata management, lineage tracking, and audit protocols in line with governance standards (e.g., GDPR, ISO 27001).
- Collaborate with compliance, safety, and finance teams to ensure integrity of regulatory and commercial reporting outputs.
- Work closely with data analysts, BI developers, and data scientists to deliver usable datasets, feature engineering, and model‑ready structures.
- Assist in the development of dashboards, forecasting tools, and machine learning platforms.
- Contribute to rail‑specific use cases including fault prediction, delay analysis, customer segmentation, and energy optimisation.
- Manage cloud and on‑premises data environments using platforms such as Azure, AWS, GCP, and Snowflake.
- Develop using programming languages and tools, support API development, containerisation, and CI/CD pipelines as needed.
Experience, Knowledge, Qualifications & Training
- Experience in data engineering, software development, or systems integration within large or regulated organisations.
- Proficiency in SQL and Python, along with familiarity with cloud‑based data platforms.
- Strong understanding of ETL processes, data architecture, and performance optimisation techniques.
- Exposure to transport, logistics, or infrastructure sectors with IoT or telematics integration.
- Experience working with large‑scale operational data sets (e.g., reliability logs, telemetry feeds, maintenance systems).
Diversity & Inclusion
We believe our people should reflect the diverse communities we serve. Inclusion is central to our success and we are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported to be their best.
Data Engineer in Birmingham employer: XC Trains Limited
As a Data Engineer with us, you'll be part of a forward-thinking team dedicated to enhancing operational efficiency and strategic planning within the railway sector. We offer a collaborative work culture that values diversity and inclusion, alongside opportunities for professional growth through continuous learning and development. Located in a dynamic environment, our company provides access to cutting-edge technology and the chance to work on impactful projects that shape the future of transportation.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Data Engineer in Birmingham
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We think you need these skills to ace Data Engineer in Birmingham
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show Off Your Projects:In the world of data science, your projects can speak volumes about your skills. Make sure to showcase a few key projects in your CV or portfolio, especially those that highlight your ability to work with data sets, build models, or use relevant tools like Python, R, or SQL. Don’t forget to include links to any GitHub repositories if applicable!
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How to prepare for a job interview at XC Trains Limited
✨Brush Up on Your Statistics
For a data science role, we need to seriously sharpen our statistics skills. Get ready to tackle technical questions on probability distributions, hypothesis testing, and regression analysis. These are often the bread and butter of data science interviews, so don't just skim over them!
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Prepare a killer portfolio showcasing your data science projects. We should include details about the datasets used, the tools and techniques applied, and the impact of your findings. If we can walk them through a particularly challenging project or a cool visualisation that had real-world implications, it’ll really make us stand out!
✨Get Comfortable with Python and R
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✨Prepare for Case Studies
Expect to encounter real-world case studies during the interview. We might be asked how we’d approach a data problem or analyse a dataset to extract insights. It's essential to think out loud and demonstrate our problem-solving process so that the interviewer can see our logical thinking in action.
