Senior Data Engineer (Contract)
Location: UK (Remote / Hybrid)
Contract Type: Contract (Outside IR35)
Role Overview
We are seeking a Senior Data Engineer (Contract) to support the delivery of secure, business-critical data platforms within high-assurance, regulated environments. The role focuses on designing and implementing resilient data pipelines and integration services that enable controlled data sharing across complex, multi-domain systems, while maintaining strong standards of security, governance, and compliance.
The successful contractor will operate at a senior technical level, contributing to platform design, assuring engineering quality, and supporting delivery in environments where data integrity, availability, and access control are essential.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and maintain secure, scalable data pipelines and integration services
- Engineer data solutions that support controlled data access across complex domains
- Develop production-grade code aligned with secure-by-design principles
- Model complex datasets to support interoperability and governed access
- Integrate data from diverse sources, including legacy and operational systems
- Implement fine-grained access controls, data classification, and governance mechanisms
- Support deployment and operation of data services across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments
- Collaborate with architects, security specialists, and delivery teams
- Contribute to design reviews and technical decision-making
- Ensure performance, resilience, and observability of data platforms
- Produce and maintain clear technical documentation
Required Skills & Experience
- Extensive experience operating as a Senior Data Engineer on complex, enterprise-scale platforms
- Strong programming capability in Python
- Commercial experience with Java and/or Scala
- Advanced SQL and strong data modelling skills
- Proven experience designing and operating ETL / ELT pipelines at scale
- Solid understanding of distributed systems and data platform architecture
- Experience with at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP)
- Experience with containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices
Experience in Regulated Environments
- Experience delivering data solutions in regulated or high-assurance settings
- Understanding of security-focused architectures such as least-privilege access
- Experience implementing data governance, classification, and policy-driven access controls
- Comfortable operating in environments with formal assurance, audit, and compliance requirements
- Able to handle sensitive information in line with contractual and organisational standards
Desirable Experience
- Knowledge of semantic data, knowledge graphs, or graph databases
- Experience with RDF, SPARQL, or ontology-based data models
- Familiarity with controlled or cross-domain data sharing patterns
- Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation)
- Exposure to open-source data platforms or frameworks
Contractor Profile
- Able to deliver independently with minimal supervision
- Comfortable working within structured delivery frameworks
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Clear communicator with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Pragmatic, delivery-focused, and quality-driven
Additional Information
Due to the nature of the work, candidates must be eligible to pass background and suitability checks as part of the engagement.
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