Senior Data Engineer, N and I Business Operations at Home Office in Glasgow, Salford, Sheffield.

Job summary

Home Office Digital designs, builds and develops services for the rest of the department and for government. Every year our systems support up to 3 million visa applications, checks on 100 million border crossings, up to 8 million passport applications and deliver 140 million police checks on people, vehicles and property.

Senior Data Engineers design and implement complex data flows to connect operational systems with analytics and BI systems. You’ll build and manage data flows, collaborating with the Data Science community and Product Owners to identify strategies and services to best support business needs. You’ll help set the direction for service technology and data architecture, while mentoring junior team members, promoting collaboration and encouraging an agile approach to work.

You’ll get to work with some of the largest and most varied datasets around, and benefit from a wealth of continuous professional development resources and career opportunities. You’ll play a key role in delivering joined-up, intelligent services that unlock the value from data and deliver better outcomes for the UK.

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.

Job description

This role sits in the Central FinOps team and is primarily focused on cloud financial management. We are looking for an experienced finance professional who wants to apply their knowledge in a digital and data-enabled environment. Strong finance experience is the primary requirement. Previous data engineering, cloud or programming experience is not essential, as the relevant technical skills can be developed in the role.

You will support the financial management and control of significant AWS and Azure expenditure. This includes cost allocation, budgeting and forecasting, invoicing, reconciliation, recharge and chargeback. You will investigate financial discrepancies and work with finance, commercial, supplier, cloud platform and business teams to ensure expenditure is accurate, traceable and attributed to the correct portfolios, programmes and services.

Using financial and cloud consumption data, you will help improve management information, reporting, dashboards and automated financial processes. Your work will strengthen financial governance, transparency and accountability while helping stakeholders understand their cloud consumption and associated costs.

This is an opportunity to move from a finance-focused career into FinOps, cloud financial management, data analytics and automation, while continuing to apply established experience of financial operations, accounting processes, governance and controls.

Senior Data Engineers design and lead the implementation of complex data flows to connect operational systems, data for analytics and BI systems.

As a Senior Data Engineer, you will identify, build, modify and manage data flows between complex systems using the appropriate solution.

You will be working with the Data Science community, who set the scope of data engineering work through user research and data pipelines. Through sharing work with Product Owners, you will identify strategies for how the service is best able to support business needs.

You will work with fellow members of the Data Engineering community to set the direction of the service technology and data architecture. You will also mentor more junior members of the team - promoting challenge, collaborating and encouraging an agile approach to working.

Person specification

Main Responsibilities

• Analysing problems and experimenting with possible solutions to find the underlying causes of issues or discrepancies to identify problems and to assist in the development of innovative solutions.
• Analysing and reporting test activities and results, supporting data engineers and stakeholders on data analysis issues.
• Designing and implementing a data streaming service, including the development of new data models and ETL processes.
• Ensuring the successful delivery of completed data loads for customers, Data Analysts and Data Scientists, troubleshooting where required.
• Designing, building and testing data products and solutions that are complex or large scale, through full development, test and deployment lifecycles.
• Applying concepts and principles of data modelling and producing relevant and varied data models across multiple subject areas and providing guidance on how to use them.

Working Pattern

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis. However, compressed hours are available.

Essential Skills

You’ll have strong finance operations experience and an interest in using data, technology, and automation to improve financial processes; with the following skills or some experience in:

• Experience of financial operations within UK government or another large, regulated organisation, including financial accounting, management accounting, financial control, delegated authority, audit requirements and the accurate processing of financial transactions.
• Experience of budgeting, forecasting, cost allocation, reconciliation and investigating financial discrepancies, with strong attention to detail and a clear understanding of financial governance, risk management and internal controls.
• Practical experience of invoicing, receipting, purchase orders and credit notes, including purchase-to-pay (P2P), order-to-cash (O2C), accounts payable or accounts receivable processes.
• Experience of using finance systems or enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms, such as Oracle, to support financial processing, reporting or reconciliation.
• Experience of working with suppliers, commercial teams and operational stakeholders, including communicating complex financial information clearly to financial and non-financial audiences.
• Experience of using financial data, spreadsheets, reporting tools or management information to support analysis, assurance and decision-making.
• An interest in developing technical skills in: IT programming and automation, using tools such as industry standard ETL tools, network databases and scheduling and orchestration tools, using modern / open source programming languages in order to deliver data development / engineering products, using public cloud data technologies.

SFIA capability framework

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) version 8 is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework: All skills A - Z English (sfia-online.org) .

We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process.

The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework (based on the industry standard SFIA framework). Use the SFIA Levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each technical skills listed below.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Innovation (INOV) – Level 3
• Methods and Tools (METL) – Level 3
• Data Management (DATM) – Level 3
• Data Modelling and Design (DTAN) – Level 3
• Database Design (DBDS) – Level 3
• Data Engineering (DENG) – Level 3

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £49,850, Home Office contributes

£14,441 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).

Why work for us...

Find out more information at : Benefits - Home Office Careers, but some of the primary ones are:

• A Civil Service Pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service.
• 8 days of public holidays, plus 1 additional privilege day.
• Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in an office.

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Things you need to know

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 Experience and Technical skills.

As part of the application process, you will be asked to complete a CV and 1000 - word personal statement:

• CV – include a brief employment history outlining for each role, the organisation, job title, dates in post, and key responsibilities and achievements. Any recent employment gaps should be explained. A second section should set out the skills and experience most relevant to this role, drawing on your career, training, and other relevant activities without repeating the employment history. Focus on the evidence that best demonstrates your capability to meet the role requirements.
• Personal statement - this should present a clear and coherent narrative explaining why you are applying, what you would bring to the role, and how your experience meets the essential criteria. Use well ‑ chosen examples to illustrate your impact, drawing on STAR ‑ style thinking where helpful, but ensure the statement reads as a single, flowing document rather than a set of isolated responses.

To ensure you are assessed on merit alone, we ask you to anonymise your application. This means removing personal identifiers such as your name, age, and place of education. You do not need to remove your employment history, job titles, or any information about your work.

Watch our three short videos on how to apply for our roles: Applying - Home Office Careers.

Problems during the application process

If you experience problems accessing this advert, or you think you’ve made a mistake on an initial application, please contact hocandidates.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk, including the vacancy reference, at least two working days before the vacancy closes. Further information can be found on our website .

Do not create or attempt to submit another application, online test or use a different Civil Service Jobs account to proceed as this would be in violation of the candidate declaration.

Sift Stage

The sift will be held on the CV and Personal Statement . Please read the essential skills for this position carefully. We will only consider those who meet the listed requirements.

In the event of a high number of applications received, an initial sift may be held on the Personal Statement.

Interview Stage

Candidates reaching the required standard will then be invited to attend an interview. The interview will assess your Technical Skills (SFIA Framework) using technical based questions.

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