Data Engineer (Maternity Cover)

The Wildlife Trusts; Balderton; On-site; GBP 32,000 - 35,000; Part time

Job summary

The Wildlife Trusts are seeking a Data Engineer to maintain and enhance our federation-wide data pipelines and data lakehouse architecture. You will ensure performance, security, and scalability across the organisation, enabling data-driven decision making.

Working with teams across the federation, you will develop data management solutions, forecast data volumes and optimise cloud services such as Azure, Databricks, and ESRI, while supporting analysts who use Power BI and GIS tools.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in building and maintaining data pipelines and data lakehouse architectures.
• Strong proficiency in SQL and Python for data processing and analysis.
• Familiarity with cloud services (Azure) and data visualization tools (Power BI).

Responsibilities

• Maintain and optimise data pipelines and data infrastructure across the federation.
• Ensure data systems are secure, scalable and cost-efficient.
• Develop data management solutions and new use cases for decision-making.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to deliver federation-wide data services.

Skills

Data engineering

SQL

Python

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in a relevant field

Tools

Azure

Databricks

ESRI

Power BI

RStudio

GIS

GitHub

Job description

Making sure you fit the guidelines as an applicant for this role is essential, please read the below carefully.

Predominantly home-based with occasional travel to locations across the UK.

up to £35,000 per annum

Maternity cover contract – Until 30 April 2027

35 hours per week, Mondays to Fridays. Part-time hours considered.

Closing date for applications: 27 September 2026

First interview: 8 October 2026 (Online)

Second interview: 15 October 2026 (Online)

Office facilities are available (Tuesday to Thursday) at our Newark office at The Kiln, Waterside, Mather Road, Newark, NG24 1WT for those within easy travelling distance.

About Us

The Wildlife Trusts are a grassroots movement of people from a wide range of backgrounds and all walks of life, who believe that we need nature and nature needs us. We have more than 945,000 members, over 33,000 volunteers, 4,100 staff and 600 trustees. There are 46 individual Wildlife Trusts, each of which is a place-based independent charity with its own legal identity, formed by groups of people getting together and working with others to make a positive difference to wildlife and future generations, starting where they live and work.

Every Wildlife Trust is part of The Wildlife Trusts federation and a corporate member of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, a registered charity in its own right founded in 1912 and one of the founding members of IUCN – the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Taken together this federation of 47 charities is known as The Wildlife Trusts.

The next few years will be critical in determining what kind of world we all live in. We need to urgently reverse the loss of wildlife and put nature into recovery at scale if we are to prevent climate and ecological disaster. We recognise that this will require big, bold changes in the way The Wildlife Trusts work, not least in how we mobilise others and support them to organise within their own communities.

About You

As Data Engineer, you will play a crucial role in supporting the work of The Wildlife Trusts by maintaining and enhancing our data pipelines and infrastructure. You will be responsible for ensuring the effectiveness, efficiency, and scalability of the federation wide data service system, a data lakehouse, providing key insights and solutions to support decision‑making across the organisation and federation, responding to the needs of Wildlife Trusts and the delivery of our 2030 Strategy.

Working collaboratively with various teams, you will develop data management solutions and products, new use cases, forecast data volumes, and ensure cost‑effective service maintenance. You will be integral in enabling us to leverage data for operational and strategic success and in supporting a strong community of practice within the federation of Wildlife Trusts.

As Data Engineer, you will be responsible for managing and optimising data pipelines, cloud services, and providing data‑driven solutions to support business needs. To excel in this role, you should be highly motivated, detail‑oriented, and passionate about people focused data engineering and analysis. You will have experience in a data engineering role, ideally with practical experience or the ability to upskill in cloud services like Azure, Databricks and ESRI, as well as excellent proven proficiency, SQL and Python. Ideally you would have a familiarity with developing pipelines which support Analysts who use RStudio, Power BI and/or GIS. You will have experience or the ability to up‑skill in administering data services linked to the Data Lakehouse holistically, such as GitHub, Power BI.

You will work closely with and on behalf of teams across the Wildlife Trusts to ensure our data systems are secure, optimised, scalable, and cost‑efficient. You should have a solid understanding of data security to ensure compliance with best practices. Excellent communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with cross‑functional teams are essential. If you are a problem solver with a can‑do attitude and a passion for data, we encourage you to apply for this exciting opportunity to become our Data Engineer