Lead Data Engineer — Real-Time River Water Quality (Hybrid)

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

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.