head of data engineering

The organisation is modernising its data estate and building a scalable platform to support analytics, AI, and business decision-making.

• Build, lead, and mentor a team of Data Engineers, Analytics Engineers, and Platform Engineers
• Define and execute the data engineering roadmap with senior leadership
• Drive delivery across platform development, data migrations, and modernisation initiatives
• Establish engineering standards for code quality, CI/CD, testing, documentation, and operational excellence
• Oversee architecture decisions to ensure scalable, reliable, and secure data solutions
• Develop cloud-based data platforms supporting analytics, reporting, and AI use cases
• Manage stakeholder relationships across technology, product, analytics, and business teams
• Ensure platform reliability through monitoring, incident management, and operational governance
• Support hiring, team development, and succession planning within the engineering function
• Champion best practices across Data Engineering, DataOps, and platform operations

• Strong commercial experience leading Data Engineering teams and delivering large-scale data platform programmes
• Expertise with modern cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud
• Strong understanding of data warehousing, data modelling, ETL/ELT pipelines, and orchestration tools
• Experience building and scaling engineering teams while maintaining high technical standards
• Ability to lead architectural discussions and make informed technical decisions
• Experience implementing CI/CD, automation, testing, and DataOps best practices
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to translate business requirements into technical delivery plans
• Experience delivering complex transformation programmes, including migrations, consolidations, or greenfield platform builds
• Familiarity with governance, security, and compliance requirements in enterprise environments
• Hands-on leadership style and ability to support technical teams when needed

• Performance-related bonus
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Flexible working arrangements
• Opportunity to shape and scale an entire Data Engineering function
• Significant exposure to senior leadership and strategic decision-making
• Clear progression towards Director-level and broader Data & AI leadership responsibilities
• Opportunity to influence the organisation's long-term data and AI strategy