Senior data engineer

Job Description

Role: Senior Data Engineer

Location: South Wales

Salary: £63,500

The Opportunity

We are seeking an experienced Senior Data Engineer to lead the development of a modern, secure, cloud-based data platform. This role will be instrumental in shaping the organisation's data capabilities, delivering trusted analytics and reporting solutions, and establishing the foundations for future AI and advanced data initiatives.

This is a hands-on position requiring a blend of architecture, engineering expertise, governance, and stakeholder engagement.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and evolve a scalable cloud data platform and supporting architecture.
• Develop and maintain robust ELT/ETL pipelines, ensuring high standards of reliability, performance, and security.
• Establish and embed DataOps and DataSecOps practices, including CI/CD, testing, version control, and automated quality controls.
• Deliver governed data models and reporting structures that enable trusted, self-service analytics.
• Implement data governance, security, privacy, and access control frameworks.
• Monitor and improve data quality, integrity, and consistency across multiple systems.
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and best-practice guidance to colleagues.
• Partner with business stakeholders to understand requirements and deliver practical, value-driven data solutions.
• Drive continuous improvement across data engineering, reporting, and analytics capabilities.

Essential Requirements

• Strong expertise in SQL and Python (PySpark desirable).
• Proven experience designing and building cloud-based data platforms from inception.
• Hands-on experience with Databricks, Spark, modern data lake/lakehouse architectures, and data integration pipelines.
• Strong understanding of data security, governance, access controls, and handling sensitive data.
• Experience implementing CI/CD, Git-based workflows, automated testing, and deployment practices.
• Solid data modelling experience for analytics and business intelligence.
• Track record of delivering scalable reporting and self-service analytics environments.
• Experience mentoring team members and promoting engineering best practices.
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

Think this one's for you

If you think this Senior Data Engineer opportunity is for you then please apply online.

Yolk Public Sector & Not-for-Profit team works with organisations across the UK to fulfil their recruitment needs and to achieve their D&I objectives. We recruit temporary, contract and permanent hires for 1 off specialist needs or for volume campaigns. We support our applicants to navigate the public sector recruitment processes and secure their dream jobs.

Yolk Recruitment is an equal opportunities employer and embraces diversity in our workforce. We employ the best people for the job at hand and actively encourage applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, age, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, educational background, parental status, gender identity or any other protected characteristic. We champion and celebrate diversity at Yolk allowing our team to bring their whole selves to work.