Data Engineer (National Security)

Location: Hybrid working across West and Manchester National Security hubs
Hybrid: Secure-site working required (hybrid pattern)
Salary: £70,000 – £120,000 plus bonus and benefits, depending on experience and SFIA grading
Clearance: Active DV / eDV clearance preferred

The Opportunity

You will be joining a long-established technology business with deep roots in geospatial and data capability, now rapidly expanding its National Security footprint across cloud, analytics and modern data platforms.

Over the last few years the organisation has grown significantly through investment, programme wins and increasing demand across secure Government and National Security environments. Their National Security capability is now scaling quickly, with major long-term programmes already secured and further growth planned across both the West and Manchester regions.

What makes the environment particularly interesting is the combination of heritage and modernisation. The business has decades of expertise in geospatial and operational data, but is now evolving heavily into cloud-native data engineering, analytics and AI-enabled capability.

This creates an environment where engineers can work across a broad range of modern data challenges while still operating inside a specialist engineering culture rather than a large, process-heavy prime.

For engineers currently looking for stronger technical exposure, greater influence or the opportunity to help shape a growing capability, this is an opportunity to join at a genuinely exciting stage of growth.

The Role

As a Data Engineer you will help design, build and evolve secure data platforms and pipelines supporting complex National Security programmes.

You will work across cloud-native environments, helping customers modernise how they ingest, process and exploit operational data at scale.

Typical responsibilities include:

• Designing and developing scalable data pipelines and ETL frameworks using Python-based processing
• Building cloud-native data platforms using AWS services and modern distributed architectures
• Supporting streaming and real-time data environments using technologies such as Kafka and modern event-driven systems
• Working across structured and unstructured datasets to support analytics and operational decision-making
• Designing and maintaining data models, schemas and storage architectures across relational and NoSQL environments
• Supporting integration and transformation of geospatial, operational and analytics data sources
• Collaborating with engineers, architects and stakeholders to shape secure data platform evolution
• Contributing to modern engineering practices across automation, testing and platform reliability

The environment combines elements of cloud engineering, analytics, geospatial capability and AI-enabled systems, giving engineers broad exposure across multiple disciplines rather than confining them to a narrow platform or product area.

The organisation values engineers who are adaptable, collaborative and comfortable engaging with both technical teams and stakeholders. Strong engineering fundamentals and curiosity are considered more important than matching every technology exactly.

This role is particularly well suited to engineers who want to combine modern cloud and data engineering practices with meaningful real-world application inside secure environments.

Security Requirements

Due to the nature of the work, active DV / eDV clearance is preferred. Candidates should typically be sole UK nationals and eligible to work within secure National Security environments.

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