Senior Data Engineer

Senior Data Engineer

Location: National*

Closing Date: 12th May 2025

Interviews: From 9th June 2025 (please note that this may be subject to change)

Grade: SEO

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary

National: £41463 - £51675 (which may include an allowance of up to £10,212)

London: £47657 - £56050 (which may include an allowance of up to £8393)

Working pattern: full-time, part-time, flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP

The Role

We're recruiting for a Senior Data Engineer here at the Ministry of Justice, to be part of our warm and collaborative Data & Analytics Engineering team.

This role aligns against Senior Data Engineer from the Government Digital and Data Framework.

This is a great opportunity to work with leading cloud technology and help change the way data is used in the public sector. Data engineers at MoJ play a critical role in our mission to put data at the heart of decision-making. We're looking for people with the drive to develop a deep understanding of data needs and data availability across specific areas of the Ministry of Justice.

You will work in a team of Data Engineers, alongside Analytics Engineers, to bridge the gap between data producers and data users, developing analytical pipelines and self-service tools to acquire and transform data, making it available on our Analytical Platform. A summary of the type of work the teams are involved in can be found in our handbook.

Key Responsibilities:

As a Senior Data Engineer your work might involve:

• designing and building robust and scalable automated data flows to connect operational systems, data for analytics and business intelligence (BI) systems

• recognising opportunities to reuse and re-engineer data flows to enable scaling and repeatable use

• designing and writing ETL (extract, transform, load) scripts and code to ensure the ETL process performs optimally

• working with data users to understand and translate their needs into technical requirements

• using a range of AWS services to deploy your solutions in a reproducible, sustainable manner

• using infrastructure-as-code to deploy AWS cloud infrastructure

• developing and optimising code, tools and services that enable people to use data effectively

You may also be expected to carry out the following day to day activities:

• designing and maintaining technical documentation

• creating and promoting best practices within the team and wider

• responding to incident reports, ensuring relevant prioritisation and detail to allow for effective investigation

• developing novel solutions to fit the needs of a range of stakeholders

• supporting the Ministry of Justice's Analytical Platform users to use our data and tools

• initiating team-building and development initiatives

• line managing a more junior colleague

We welcome applications from anyone with the skills we consider make a good

data engineer. You may not currently be in a data engineering role and that's ok.

Many of our team members have a background in analysis, software engineering,

data science, and more.

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Benefits

• 37 hours per week and flexible working options including working from home, working part-time, job sharing, or working compressed hours.

• A £1k per person learning budget is in place to support all our people, with access to best in class conferences and seminars, accreditation with professional bodies, fully funded vocational programmes and e-learning platforms

• Staff have 10% time to dedicate to develop & grow

• Generous civil service pension based on defined benefit scheme, with employer contributions of 28.97% from April 1st 2024 (Contribution Rates)

• 25 days leave (plus bank holidays) and 1 privilege day usually taken around the Kings' birthday. 5 additional days of leave once you have reached 5 years of service.

• Compassionate maternity, adoption, and shared parental leave policies, with up to 26 weeks leave at full pay, 13 weeks with partial pay, and 13 weeks further leave. And maternity support/paternity leave at full pay for 2 weeks, too!

• Wellbeing support including access to the Calm app.

• Bike loans up to £2500 and secure bike parking (subject to availability and location)

• Season ticket loans, childcare vouchers and eye-care vouchers.

• 5 days volunteering paid leave.

• Free membership to BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.

• Some offices may have a subsidised onsite Gym.

Person Specification

Essential

You'll have a demonstrable passion for Data Engineering, with the following skills or

some experience in:

• working in a technical team, preferably one that uses Python and SQL, as well as strong technical skills in these languages

• understanding of the software development lifecycle, including testing (e.g. pytest), version control (e.g. git) and CI/CD (e.g. GitHub Actions)

• working with a range of data sources

• working with data, such as data wrangling, analysis or manipulation

• communicating with stakeholders, and translating user needs into technical requirements

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for SC clearance

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

How to Apply

Candidates must submit

• an anonymised CV, including career history, responsibilities, and achievements

• a cover letter which describes how you meet the requirements set out in the Person Specification above - this should be no longer than 750 words

We are recruiting using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We will assess your Experience, Technical Skills and the following Behaviours during the assessment process:

• Changing and Improving

• Managing a Quality Service

A diverse panel will review your application against the essential criteria detailed in the Person Specification above.

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to interview. There will be one interview, covered in two sections, which will include a technical exercise and assessment of civil service behaviours. More information on the exercise will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on working in a technical team, preferably one that uses Python and SQL, as well as strong technical skills in these languages will be conducted before the sift.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms & Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact datarecruitment@justice.gov.uk