Data Engineer

The National Education Union is a force for change in the world of education, bringing together more than 500,000 educators in maintained and independent schools and colleges across the UK.

Whatever the future holds the NEU is convinced that by building strong workplace organisation we can transform our education system so that it works for all students and all Educators. We have ambitious plans and we are seeking a significant number of staff to support us in this work. This is a unique opportunity to play a pivotal role in empowering educators, strengthening union structures, and driving meaningful change in workplaces across local authorities and multi-academy trusts. If you have experience as a workplace activist, caseworker or trade union organiser with a commitment to social justice, read on.

We are currently looking to appoint a Data Engineer to support the development of data products and implement solutions that will have a positive impact on the union. The successful candidates will contribute by working collaboratively cross-union to build and support the development and implementation of data products and tools that will include a range of reporting and visualisation tools.

They will do this by

• Supporting the development of data products and implement solutions that will have a positive impact on the union’s ability to achieve its strategic objectives.
• Deliver data that is accessible, reliable and ready for analysis.
• Building scalable pipelines to support the development of datasets and models
• Collaborating with colleagues in other relevant parts of the union including, policy, research, organising, campaign, communications and bargaining to support clever and effective use of data

We are seeking applicants with

• Strong understanding of data warehousing, lakehouses and analytical data architectures.
• Expertise in SQL, Python and data modelling techniques
• Experience with Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Fabric and/or Azure Data Services.
• Proficiency in data transformation and orchestration technologies.
• Experience working with structured, semi-structured and large-volume datasets.
• Knowledge of data governance, security and data quality practices

They will demonstrate

• Proficiency in data manipulation using SQL, Spark, pandas, or similar.
• Proficiency in building secure and compliant data pipelines in Microsoft Azure environments
• Experience within data warehousing, ETL, processing, querying, and management.
• Ability to write code with a focus on testability
• Experience building data models in business intelligence tools and collaborating on the design of visualisation layers.

Prospective applicants are also advised that your normal place of work will be the NEU office specified in this advert and that the NEU operates ‘blended working arrangements’ for office-based staff, which means you will typically need to be based in the designated NEU office for three to four days a week (based on a full-time contract), with the remaining days based at home, and subject to business needs.

In addition to salary, we offer good conditions including 33 days’ annual leave plus Christmas closure days and a defined benefit pension scheme. Salary will be calculated pro-rata for part-time applicants.

Further details can be downloaded from our website at https://neu.org.uk/working-neu where applicants will be able to complete an online application on our recruitment portal. Closing date is mid-day Tuesday 20 October 2026.

We welcome applications from individuals seeking part-time, job-share or other flexible working arrangements.

THE UNION IS FUNDAMENTALLY COMMITTED TO EQUAL OPPORTUNIES IN ITS POLICIES AND PRACTICE