Office for National Statistics
Senior Data Engineer
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The locations for this role are Newport and Titchfield (Fareham).
This role is aligned to ONS hybrid working principles, which are based on attending the office with purpose. The postholder will be expected to contribute to the organisation’s overall 40% office attendance, in line with business and role requirements.
Due to workforce controls you can only select Manchester / London / Darlington / Edinburgh if you are an existing ONS / UKSA employee contracted to that location. If you are not contracted at one of these sites, these options are not available to you.
Only existing ONS contractual homeworkers can select Homeworking.
Applicants who select a location they are not eligible for will be removed from the recruitment process and will not be considered for alternative locations. Please refer to attachments for further terms and flexibilities.
The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.
Job Summary
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.
Data Engineers are responsible for data products and services in ONS, primarily to support the ease-of-use and consistency of our data across our data platforms, enabling ONS statistical areas, researchers and wider external data users.
Curious about an exciting opportunity to develop your career as a Data Engineer?
Join us at our recruitment event on 24th July at 13:00 to learn more about the role, the profession, and the opportunities available. You'll hear directly from the Head of Profession and our current Data Engineers, who will share their experiences, career journeys, and insights into working within the profession. A recruitment representative will also be on hand to explain the recruitment process and answer any questions you may have.
Register now to secure your place and take the next step in your Data Engineering career. Book Here
Job Description
We’re looking for someone with technical skills but also a great attitude, who is proactive, takes pride in the quality of their work and is eager to continually improve their technical skills. We welcome applications from varied technical backgrounds including but not limited to: data science, infrastructure engineering, software engineering or related technical disciplines.
As well as day to day processing and delivery we work as a team to develop the capability of the organisation – developing re-usable and increasingly automated code, tools, and best practice so that we and others across the organisation can build the data pipelines needed to support the growing work of a changing organisation. Your work will include data cleansing, validation, and enhancement processes to refine the quality and integrity of the data and prepare this for onward linkage.
We encourage training and development so that we can stay on top of changing technology. We have and continue to invest in the development of our staff with internal and external training opportunities.
As a Data Engineer In ONS You May:
- Work across the lifecycle of ETL/ELT (extract, transform, load / extract, load, transform) pipelines that facilitate the movement and transformation of data across our systems.
- Conduct data profiling and analysis to assess data quality, identify anomalies, and uncover insights that inform data pipeline design and business decision-making.
- Develop and maintain internal software packages for Data Engineering.
- Use tools across our tech-stacks, such as SQL, Python, PySpark, Cloudera Data Platform, Google Cloud Platform.
- Optimise the performance of our queries and data pipelines.
- Collaborate with various technical and business stakeholders to develop and deliver on requirements, to ensure our data and processes meet business needs.
- Set, follow and ensure adherence to standard ways of working and good practice in Data Engineering.
- Ensure governance and compliance of our data and processes in line with ONS policies and wider legal requirements.
- Contribute to the evaluation and adoption of new tools, frameworks, and technologies that enhance the data engineering ecosystem.
- Champion the role of Data Engineers within ONS and participate in ONS and Civil Service Data Engineering communities.
- Take an active role in building the capability of Data Engineers within ONS
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Responsibilities
- Lead the design, build, operation and maintenance of a portfolio of repeatable pipelines to prepare and load data into strategic ONS data platforms.
- Oversee the rollout of improvements to data engineering processes across a portfolio of repeatable pipelines.
- Identify opportunities for innovation in our Data Engineering workflows and processes. Work as part of a team to deliver prioritised change projects to deliver efficiencies and improvements.
We’re looking for someone with technical skills but also a great attitude, who is proactive, takes pride in the quality of their work and is eager to continually improve their technical skills. We welcome applications from varied technical backgrounds including but not limited to: data science, infrastructure engineering, software engineering or related technical disciplines.
As well as day to day processing and delivery we work as a team to develop the capability of the organisation – developing re-usable and increasingly automated code, tools, and best practice so that we and others across the organisation can build the data pipelines needed to support the growing work of a changing organisation. Your work will include data cleansing, validation, and enhancement processes to refine the quality and integrity of the data and prepare this for onward linkage.
We encourage training and development so that we can stay on top of changing technology. We have and continue to invest in the development of our staff with internal and external training opportunities.
Person Specification
Essential Criteria:
- Programming and build (data engineering) - Practitioner - Use agreed standards and tools to design, code, test, correct and document moderate-to-complex programs and scripts from agreed specifications and subsequent iterations. Develop and review specifications where appropriate
- Communicating between the technical and non-technical - Working - Communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders. Support and host discussions within a multidisciplinary team, with potentially difficult dynamics. Be an advocate for the team externally. Manage differing stakeholder perspectives
- Problem management - Practitioner - Ensure that the right actions are taken to investigate, resolve and anticipate problems. Co-ordinate the team to investigate problems, implement solutions and take preventive measures.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Changing and Improving
- Working Together
- Making Effective Decisions
Alongside your salary of £41,985, Office for National Statistics contributes £12,163 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.
Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.
This Role Is Part Of The Cross-government Government Digital And Data (formerly DDaT) Profession Framework. As a Role Within Government Digital And Data (formerly DDaT) At The ONS, We Also Offer Benefits Such As:
- Protected Learning Time to spend on your personal development and side-projects.
- A supportive and active Community of Practice which you will be expected to contribute to, helping ensure you and your colleagues get the training, development and opportunities you need to progress your careers.
We are committed to supporting our people’s wellbeing by offering flexible ways of working that support a healthy work life balance. We are happy to explore opportunities with you about working flexibly in line with our hybrid working policies.
Inclusion & Accessibility
At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Security Clearance
For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link, or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying to discuss, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance
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