{"id":4071738,"url":"https://alion.io/job/serco-lead-data-engineer","title":"Lead Data Engineer","company":{"id":1779743,"name":"Serco","domain":"serco.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/serco-com","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"services","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"SuccessFactors","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":100,"open_postings":30,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.033,"repost_share":0.033,"time_to_fill_p50_days":20,"computed_at":"2026-11-11T05:49:22Z"}},"role":"Data Science","role_family":"Data Science","seniority":"lead","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":75000,"max":85000,"currency":"GBP","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":113197},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Amazon Kinesis","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Azure","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Databricks","optional":false},{"name":"Delta Lake","optional":false},{"name":"IAM","optional":false},{"name":"MLFlow","optional":false},{"name":"pySpark","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Vault","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Spark","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-21T02:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-21","last_verified_at":"2026-11-11T13:43:04Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":82,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":82},"description":"Lead Data Engineer\nHybrid - Attached to our Solihull, London or Hook office\nFull Time, Permanent\nBand 3 / £75,000 - £85,000 (dependent on experience)\nHere at Serco, we’re looking for a Lead Data Engineer to act as the technical authority for data engineering, driving architecture, standards, and delivery across a modern multi-cloud ecosystem spanning Azure, AWS, and Databricks.\nYou’ll spend around 80% of your time hands-on, designing and building complex, enterprise-scale data solutions. The remaining 20% is just as critical: leading people, influencing stakeholders, and shaping how data engineering operates across the organisation.\nDatabricks sits at the heart of our platform - this role requires someone who can deeply leverage the Databricks to enable scalable analytics, data science, and AI use cases across the business.\nAs part of this you’ll:\nDefine and enforce data engineering standards, patterns, and best practices across the organisation.\nArchitect and deliver scalable, resilient data solutions across Azure, AWS, and Databricks, ensuring enterprise-grade performance and reliability.\nLead complex engineering workstreams - unblocking teams, guiding technical decisions, and ensuring high-quality delivery outcomes.\nDesign and govern enterprise data models (conceptual, logical, and physical), including lakehouse zone strategies and schema evolution approaches.\nChampion Databricks as the core data platform, leveraging lakehouse architecture, Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, Structured Streaming, and MLflow.\nDrive a consistent multi-cloud Databricks strategy, enabling scalable and interoperable data platforms across environments.\nOptimise performance across pipelines, compute, storage, and orchestration frameworks, embedding cost-efficiency and scalability.\nDefine and implement CI/CD for data platforms, supporting automated testing, secure deployments, and multi-environment promotion.\nEmbed robust data governance, security, and lifecycle controls, ensuring compliance through classification, encryption, access management, and lineage frameworks (e.g., Unity Catalog, Purview, Lake Formation).\nAct as a senior SME for troubleshooting complex issues, leading root-cause analysis and long-term remediation of data quality and platform challenges.\nLead, mentor, and grow a community of Data Engineers, driving technical excellence through coaching, reviews, and knowledge sharing.\nOperate effectively across a matrix organisation, influencing architecture, cyber, product, and senior stakeholders.\nCommunicate complex technical concepts clearly, articulating trade-offs, risks, and strategic decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.\nWhat you’ll need to do the role:\nExpert-level experience in enterprise-scale data engineering, including defining standards, patterns, and overseeing complex delivery.\nAdvanced proficiency in PySpark and SQL, with deep expertise in performance optimisation and scalable data processing.\nStrong experience in data modelling and large-scale data integration design, with the ability to build robust, maintainable, and testable pipelines.\nProven ability to embed testing frameworks, observability, and data quality controls across engineering workflows.\nDeep hands-on experience with Databricks (essential), including lakehouse architecture, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and streaming technologies.\nBroad cloud expertise across Azure (Synapse, ADF, Event Hub, ADLS Gen2, Purview, Key Vault) and AWS (S3, Glue, EMR, Kinesis, Athena, Lake Formation, IAM), with strong multi-cloud experience.\nStrong understanding of modern engineering practices, including CI/CD for data platforms, automated deployment pipelines, and environment promotion strategies.\nExperience designing monitoring, observability, and cost optimisation frameworks, alongside governance, lineage, cataloguing, and compliance at scale.\nExcellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior leaders and work effectively across matrixed organisations.\nProven leadership capability, including mentoring, coaching, and developing engineering teams.\nStrong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear business value.\n8+ years’ experience in data engineering within enterprise environments.\nRelevant certifications (desirable), such as Azure Data Engineer Associate, AWS Data Analytics Specialty, or Databricks Data Engineer (Associate/Professional).\nSC clearance (or willingness to obtain it)\nWhat we offer:\nCompany car\n5% on target bonus scheme\nPrivate medical insurance\nFlexible working considered\nPension - 6%\nChance to contribute to innovation in the public services\nA company passionate about diversity and inclusion\nSerco discounts which include cinema, merlin entertainment and online shopping discounts, and discounts on mobile phone plans and leisure centre memberships.\nA range of benefits to support the health and wellbeing of you and your family such as Employee Assistance Programme, Simply Health Cash Plans, and more.\nA wealth of career development training to suit your future aspirations. These range from role specific training, leadership coaching, formal study and much more to support you to build your career with Serco.\nA safe and supportive culture.\n.\nA little bit about us:\nAt Serco, everyone plays a vital part in delivering essential public services that make a real difference. As a global team of 50,000 people across Defence, Transport, Justice, Immigration, Healthcare, Leisure and Citizen Services, we’re united by a shared purpose: to improve the services that communities rely on. Guided by our values of Trust, Care, Innovation and Pride, our people make meaningful impact, every single day.\nOur inclusive recruitment commitment:\nWe prioritise your skills and potential. As a Disability Confident Leader, the Top Great British Employer of Veterans 2026, and a Gold Inclusive Employer Standard holder, we champion equal opportunities for all. We offer flexible and hybrid working where possible and make reasonable adjustments throughout recruitment and employment.\nGuaranteed Interview Scheme: Applicants with disabilities, veterans and people with convictions, who meet the minimum job criteria, are guaranteed an interview. Simply opt into the relevant scheme on the application form.\n Ban The Box: We also support fair access for those with unspent criminal convictions through our ‘Ban the Box’ pledge (some roles may have security exemptions).\nFor support with your application, please contact .\nddatjobs","description_format":"text","description_chars":6575,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Flexible schedule","Health insurance","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Facilities Management","Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)","Call Center Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-11T13:43:04Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":13,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.479,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":82,"expected_fill_days":20,"reasons":["conf:2","win:tail","crowd:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T16:40:39Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":113197,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/serco-lead-data-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/serco-lead-data-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T16:40:39Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":31611,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":1779743},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=1779743"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fserco-lead-data-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fserco-lead-data-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fserco-lead-data-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/serco-lead-data-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fserco-lead-data-engineer"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4071738}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"serco.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4071738},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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