Lead Data Engineer

United Utilities; Warrington; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Up to 10.5% annual bonus

Outstanding pension – up to 21%

Wellbeing benefits

Job summary

United Utilities in Warrington is seeking a Lead Data Engineer to own modern data platforms enabling near real-time river water quality monitoring. You will design, build, and optimise Databricks-based pipelines, collaborating with data scientists and environmental specialists.

You will lead technical teams, promote CI/CD, governance, and cost efficiency, and mentor engineers while delivering reliable datasets for regulators and operations. This hybrid role requires three days onsite per week.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years in data engineering roles, including 3+ years with Databricks.
• Strong Python and SQL skills.
• Experience with Databricks (Spark, PySpark, Delta Lake).
• Knowledge of data governance, security and compliance.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable batch and streaming data pipelines using Databricks, Spark and Delta Lake.
• Optimise Spark jobs to meet near real-time monitoring SLAs.
• Build and maintain streaming pipelines with Structured Streaming and Delta Live Tables.
• Ensure data governance with schema enforcement and validation rules.
• Collaborate with data scientists, analysts and environmental specialists to deliver high-quality datasets.
• Monitor and improve production pipelines for reliability, performance and cost efficiency.

Skills

Databricks

Spark

PySpark

Delta Lake

Unity Catalog

Workflows

Python

SQL

Cloud Platforms

Airflow

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Data Engineering

Tools

Airflow

Job description

River Water Quality Programme
Warrington (Hybrid - 3 days onsite per week)

At United Utilities, we're committed to protecting the environment that millions of people depend on every day. As part of our Digital Services team, you'll play a pivotal role in one of our most important and high-impact initiatives: near real time monitoring of river water quality.

We're looking for a Lead Data Engineer to take technical ownership of modern, scalable data platforms that turn complex environmental and telemetry data into trusted insights for regulators, scientists, and operational teams.

Key duties and responsibilities

As the Lead Data Engineer on our River Water Quality Programme, you'll design, build, and optimise Databricks-based data pipelines that enable timely, reliable and well-governed data across the organisation.

You'll:

• Design and develop scalable batch and streaming data pipelines using Databricks, Spark and Delta Lake
• Optimise Spark jobs and workflows to meet near real-time monitoring SLAs
• Build and maintain streaming pipelines using Structured Streaming and Delta Live Tables
• Ensure strong data governance, including schema enforcement, validation rules and ACID compliance
• Orchestrate and automate pipelines using Databricks Jobs, APIs or cloud-native schedulers
• Collaborate with data scientists, analysts and environmental specialists to deliver high-quality, well-documented datasets
• Monitor, troubleshoot and continuously improve production pipelines for reliability, performance and cost efficiency
• Champion best practices across CI/CD, testing, version control and documentation

Act as a technical leader and mentor, raising standards across the data engineering community

Essential skills & experience

• Deep expertise in Databricks (Spark / PySpark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Workflows)
• Strong experience building ETL/ELT pipelines, both batch and streaming
• Advanced Python and SQL skills
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS or GCP)
• Solid understanding of data modelling and modern architectures
• Strong knowledge of data governance, security and compliance
• Experience with orchestration tools such as Airflow
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, Git workflows and automated testing
• Exposure to real-time, IoT or environmental telemetry data

Experience & Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering or a related discipline
• 5+ years' experience in data engineering roles, including 3+ years with Databricks

Proven ability to lead technically and mentor engineers

We believe in rewarding our people properly:

• Up to 10.5% annual bonus
• Outstanding pension - up to 21% combined contribution
• Wellbeing benefits and support programmes

Why United Utilities?

You'll be working on data that truly matters protecting rivers, supporting environmental compliance, and helping shape the future of sustainable water management across the North West.

If you're passionate about modern data engineering, enjoy technical leadership, and want your work to have real-world environmental impact, we'd love to hear from you.