Head of Data Engineering
£100,000 – £120,000 + Bonus | Manchester (3 days Hybrid after probation)
Gravitas is delighted to be supporting a forward-thinking financial services organisation seeking their first-ever Head of Data Engineering. This is a rare opportunity to take full ownership of a modern Azure-based data estate and transform a reactive function into a proactive, value-generating capability.
You’ll lead a team of engineers within a business that recognises data as a strategic differentiator. You won’t just “build to spec”, you’ll be expected to deeply understand business problems, shape solutions, and drive engineering excellence across a rapidly maturing data environment.
If you’re looking for a genuine meritocracy where you can define the vision, elevate standards, and own the roadmap end-to-end, this is an outstanding next step.
The Opportunity
- Lead, develop, and mentor a team of 5 Data Engineers (note: BI is being separated into its own function).
- Own and evolve a modern Azure data ecosystem including Data Lake, Synapse Analytics, and Databricks.
- Build robust, scalable data pipelines, ensuring high governance, strong documentation, and engineering discipline.
- Translate business problems into engineering solutions, not just deliver against tickets.
- Create the blueprint for turning data engineering from a reactive support function into a strategic growth driver.
- Partner with the CDAO, analytics specialists, and ML teams to ensure the platform enables modelling, insight, and product innovation.
- Maintain high standards around regulation, data governance, and FCA expectations.
- Oversee platform integrity: security, access controls, audit trails, and compliance workflows (e.g., DSARs, sanctions screening).
- Shape engineering best practice and guide the implementation of modern patterns, frameworks, and tooling.
- Provide architectural and infrastructure insight, this is a hands-on role with no dedicated Azure infrastructure team.
What You Bring
Core Technical Expertise
- Proven experience leading a data engineering team
- Hands-on experience with Databricks (Delta Lake, Notebooks, Workflows, Unity Catalog).
- Proficiency in SQL, Python, and PySpark.
- Experience across Azure Data Lake, Synapse Analytics, and cloud-native architectures.
- A strong track record building scalable, high-quality pipelines and lakehouse structures.
Additional Valuable Experience
- Understanding of hybrid on‑premise/cloud patterns and SQL Server integrations.
- Exposure to ML engineering, feature stores, or analytics-ready data assets.
- Familiarity with FCA requirements, data governance frameworks, or credit/debt management environments.
- Financial services experience is highly advantageous.
Your Leadership Style
- Collaborative, empowering people leader who sets high standards.
- Able to communicate clearly with both technical and non‑technical audiences.
- Thinks strategically, balancing delivery with long-term capability building.
- Comfortable diving into detail when needed; leads by example in code quality.
- Energised by solving complex problems with a practical, solutions-first mindset.
- Resilient and driven, capable of maintaining momentum in a fast-paced, evolving environment.
What You’ll Get
- £100,000 – £120,000 base salary
- Discretionary annual bonus
- 25–30 days holiday (depending on service) + birthday day off
- Pension scheme with up to 5% matched contributions
- Manchester-based during probation; 3 days hybrid working thereafter
