Head of Data Engineering

Head of Data Engineering

Location: London

Working Pattern: Hybrid – 3 days per week onsite

Contract: Permanent

Salary: Competitive, dependent on experience

We are looking for an experienced Head of Data Engineering to lead and shape a modern data engineering function within a large-scale data transformation environment.

This is a senior leadership role requiring a combination of strong technical expertise and strategic leadership. The successful candidate will have a proven track record of delivering data modernisation programmes, building scalable data platforms and leading high-performing engineering teams.

You will be responsible for defining and executing the data engineering strategy while remaining technically credible and able to engage with architects, engineers, senior stakeholders and business leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the organisation's data engineering strategy and roadmap.
• Lead the design, implementation and ongoing evolution of modern enterprise data platforms.
• Provide technical leadership across data modernisation and transformation programmes.
• Lead and develop a team of data engineers, architects and technical specialists.
• Establish engineering standards, best practices, governance and ways of working.
• Drive the adoption of modern cloud data technologies and architectures.
• Oversee the migration and modernisation of legacy data platforms and pipelines.
• Work closely with architecture, cloud, security, governance and business teams to deliver data capabilities aligned to organisational objectives.
• Provide strategic direction while maintaining sufficient technical depth to challenge and guide implementation decisions.
• Define approaches to data ingestion, transformation, orchestration, integration and data quality.
• Drive improvements around automation, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code and DevOps practices.
• Establish appropriate approaches to platform security, governance, performance and cost optimisation.
• Manage third-party suppliers and technology partners where required.
• Communicate complex technical concepts and programme progress effectively to senior leadership.

Technical Experience

The successful candidate will have strong experience across modern data platforms, including one or more of:

• Databricks
• Snowflake
• Microsoft Fabric
• Azure / AWS / GCP data services
• Modern cloud-based data architectures
• Data Lake / Lakehouse architectures
• Data Warehousing
• ETL / ELT and data integration
• Apache Spark
• Python / SQL
• Data orchestration and workflow technologies
• Data governance and data quality
• CI/CD and DevOps
• Infrastructure as Code, such as Terraform

Experience across multiple platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric would be particularly valuable.