Lead Data Engineer at Ministry of Justice, London/Remote, 6 Months, £Contract Rate

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) priorities include improving public safety and reducing reoffending by reforming prisons, probation and youth justice, and building a justice system which makes access to justice swifter and more certain for all citizens whatever their background. Project professionals in the MoJ help to improve the government's ability to protect the public and reduce reoffending, and to provide a more effective, transparent and responsive criminal justice system for victims and the public.

MoJ's Data Modelling and Engineering Team is made up of Data Engineers and Analytics Engineers: our Data Engineers build and maintain pipelines to extract from operational systems and load data to our Analytical Platform and our Analytics Engineers model this data using dimensional modelling principles to provide useful and usable data to downstream users, including analysts, performance teams and data scientists. Over time, this supports migration towards robust, automated and maintainable downstream processes which deliver trusted analysis.

Historically the legal aid data landscape is complex and there is a current ambition across MoJ and LAA to modernise and stabilise in this area. MoJ Data and Analytics Engineering is a key part of this, and we intend to deliver modelled legal aid data to the Analytical Platform to enable seamless data access for analysis, resulting in trusted data products and confident data-driven decision making to promote access to justice.

We are looking for an experienced, collaborative Lead Data Engineer to join the team to oversee and enable work with upstream teams to bring legal aid data onto the Analytical Platform, to lead on build of a new data layer, and to collaborate closely with Analytics Engineering colleagues to support the build of a flexible data model.

Essential:

• An active SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. (Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position (short-term nature of this role and speed at which we require a postholder in situ) preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance.) 
• Excellent python, SQL and jinja skills.
• Experience with cloud platforms, ideally AWS.
• Experience of orchestrations tools, ideally airflow.
• Experience of leading, enabling and supporting a team of data engineers, guiding them to apply best practices.
• Experience of building CI/CD workflows, ideally with GitHub Actions.
• Experience of ensuring practices are up to date with latest developments in data engineering.
• Experience of reviewing, designing and developing data pipelines.
• Experience of engaging and maintaining relationships with business stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• Experience of infrastructure as code, ideally Terraform. 

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, MOJ guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.