Lead Data Engineer


Company:	Government Recruitment Service
Salary:	from £62,732 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Salford
Working pattern:	Hybrid - 2 days remote
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	26 Oct 2026
Closing date:	9 Nov 2026

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Summary

This role will be based in National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) team. NDQIS is a national service for policing that uses rule based to improve the quality, consistency and comparability of police recorded crime data submitted to the Home Office.

As a Lead Data Engineer, you will be responsible for designing, delivering and supporting high-quality end-to-end data solutions that enable effective data-driven decision making. Working across the full delivery lifecycle, you will translate complex business requirements into robust, scalable and secure data pipelines, ensuring compliance with Home Office data quality, governance and security standards.

You will lead the design and implementation of complex data integrations and text analysis methodologies, ETL processes and automated workflows, bringing together information from multiple internal and external sources. Working closely with technical and business stakeholders, you will ensure solutions are reliable, resilient and aligned with organisational objectives.

You will shape and implement the data engineering vision and roadmap, promoting best practice, innovation and continuous improvement. Driving automation and championing data quality, you will ensure solutions remain maintainable, cost-effective and scalable. You will build strong relationships across technical and non-technical communities, influencing decision-making and ensuring services align with organisational priorities and user needs.

Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. Where this is the case, employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in the office. Applicants can raise any queries to the email address at the bottom of the advert.

Watch this short video to hear from members of Home Office Digital talking about the projects they work on and their experience of working here: Working for Home Office Digital.

Essential requirements

Main Responsibilities Managing data sources to improve data quality and conform them for analysis, developing processes to balance data availability, capacity and data archiving, while continually improving processes and efficiency in the acquisition and ingestion of data. Developing, maintaining and supporting data workflows, pipelines, ETL processes and end-to-end data solutions covering requirements review, data profiling and source system analysis, design, coding, testing, deployment and documentation of complex and large-scale data products, while working collaboratively with the analytics team to ensure the reliability, usability and integrity of critical datasets. Exercising key stakeholder management skills in order to manage expectations, listen and interpret business needs, communicate progress and facilitate difficult conversations, while building a 'service culture' around data. Keeping abreast of best practice in industry and government, ensuring data solutions comply with data privacy and information security requirements, working closely with relevant specialists. Managing the performance of suppliers and the data engineering team to improve capability, as well as creating the roadmap which balances immediate user needs with long-term investment, evaluation and selection of software products to build data engineering capability, contributing to the re-platforming of data analytics systems and the refresh of tooling. Line management, coaching and professional development of the team, where required.

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