Head of Enterprise Data Engineering - FCDO - G6

Location

London, Milton Keynes or East Kilbride - You will be required to work from this location in line with FCDO policies on Hybrid Working (minimum 60% in the office).

About the job

Job summary

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office pursues our national interests and projects the UK’s role in the world. We promote the interests of British citizens, safeguard the UK’s security, defend our values, reduce poverty and tackle global challenges with our international partners. We employ more than 17,000 staff in 179 countries and territories, across our diplomatic and development offices worldwide, which consists of 282 officially designated Posts. Our UK-based staff work in King Charles Street, London, Abercrombie House in East Kilbride and in Milton Keynes.

Information and Digital Directorate (IDD) is responsible for delivering the Foreign Secretary’s ambition to make the FCDO the most technologically integrated and innovative foreign ministry globally. This means harnessing digital, data, technology, IT security and information management to support the FCDO and UK Government partners on our platform to deliver our diplomatic, development and consular aims. All while keeping our people and information safe, especially from hostile actors.

 The work we do is varied – from historical analysis and library services to cyber protection, from information rights to global network management, from supporting staff in using the latest Microsoft toolsets, to creating corporate applications, harnessing AI and much more in line with the FCDO Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) Strategy.

The Directorate is made up of a wide range of talented staff and experts including specialist, contractors, home civil servants and diplomats who have served overseas.

This role provides an exceptional opportunity for a data leader to make a difference in one of the most exciting parts of Government.  We are looking for a Data Engineering leader with outstanding technical skills to improve the use of data to inform decisions in everything it does, as well as leading our approach to how we deliver analytics to users. 

Job description

You will be responsible for building data engineering capability across the entire FCDO by providing inspirational technical leadership and career development for your colleagues.  You will do this whilst working alongside other senior team members to identify, plan, develop, and deliver data services and specific technical approaches for Data Engineers across the whole of the FCDO.  You will lead the team responsible for production of key data products across our new Microsoft Azure based Data Platform and across other cloud-based data warehouses. 

You will work alongside others to provide coherent Enterprise Data Service across the organisation. You will have many opportunities to learn, deepening your technical expertise, understanding how an international organisation works across diplomacy and development and building your own personal leadership. You will have access to a great online learning platform and have opportunities to visit overseas offices (see more details below), attend industry events and network with data leaders in other government departments. 

Roles and Responsibilities

The successful candidate will:

• Have delegated responsibility from Chief Digital Information Officer for setting the vision and strategy for developing the Data Engineering capability across FCDO. Setting the direction to build and strengthen professional capability and excellence in that domain, ensuring a consistent & coherent approach across all FCDO teams, product & service areas.  
• Manage key pipelines and data engineering in our Azure Data and Analytics platform.  Develop data pipelines from existing line of business systems and cloud platforms to build domain datasets for key users across the organisation.
• Support other services with domain specific data engineering needs on Oracle and Amazon Web Services (AWS) platforms.    
• Work with the data architecture teams to design core data products and Data integration design. You will establish standards, keep them up to date and ensure adherence to them.
• Make evidenced based decisions on the best tools, platforms, services and content to support the wider profession.  
• Facilitate staff contribution towards building the professional community, raising the profile of specialist expertise and wider Government Digital and Data (GDD) and Cyber Profession within FCDO.
• Define the skills profile, practices, and expectations (including qualifications required at different grades) to inform recruitment, onboarding, retention, talent pipelines, diversification and the development of a professional development framework. 
• Ensure appropriate representation at the Learning & Professional Development Co-ordinating Group. 
• Oversee development of learning pathways, career pathways and capability assessment criteria, including for recruitment, to foster high performance, participate in moderation. 
• Develop and embed quality of knowledge, standards and practice including skills reviews to inform Learning and Development as part of performance cycle.
• Work across UK Government and the international community to identify areas for collaboration, and promotion of success. 
• Advise and consult for senior managers on questions relating to the profession.  
• Provide occasional consulting support for programmes with performance issues or where a particular specialism is lacking or causing delivery issues.  
• Contribute to workforce strategic planning & delivery. 

The FCDO operates an agile workforce. To facilitate this, you may be required to undertake other duties from time to time as we may reasonably require.  Candidates who secure a role that is considered specialist/technical, may be required to affiliate to the relevant specialist network, if not already a member.

You may be required to travel in the UK with possible travel abroad.  This will include visiting our teams in our London, East Kilbride and Hanslope Park sites, a few times a year.  If International travel is required, it will be less frequent involving only short visits to some missions and embassies once or twice a year.

Person specification

It is essential in your application that you provide evidence and proven examples in each of the following Minimum Criteria, the Behaviours, Experience and the Technical question as far as you are able to do so. These responses will be further developed and discussed with those candidates invited for interview.

You must be a British Citizen at the time of application and, if invited to interview, you will need to bring proof of identity (British Passport/Driving Licence etc.) with you.

This role requires you to attain Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance.

For more information about this process, click here. Attaining DV will require you to have been resident in the UK for five of the last ten years. At least one year of this must have been a consecutive twelve-month period. Serving overseas with HM Forces, in some other official capacity as a representative of His Majesty’s Government or having lived overseas as a result of your parents’ or partner’s Government employment counts as UK residency for the purposes of security clearances.

Minimum Criteria

• Demonstrable track record of delivering the skills outlined in the Head of Data Engineering role in the Profession Capability Framework at Expert level. 
• Practical senior leadership experience and deep technical and multi-cloud data expertise.
• Expert understanding of data platforms built on cloud (eg Azure) environment, including data transformation, monitoring and storage.
• Experience of Data leadership role, leading data teams to deliver modern solutions for data-driven organisations.
• Experience of planning, prioritising and communicating the work of a small team to balance long-term and immediate demands.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Changing and Improving
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Working Together

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Presentation at Interview will be assessed on the Technical Understanding (Expert) - assessed using the Head of Data Engineering Capability Framework - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/data-engineer.html#head-of-data-engineering
• Programming and build (data engineering) (Expert) - We will assess your Technical Skills by using the Head of Data Engineering Framework - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/data-engineer.html#head-of-data-engineering
• Presentation at Interview will be assessed on the Technical Skill Communicating between the technical and non-technical (Expert) - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/data-engineer.html#head-of-data-engineering

We only ask for evidence of these technical skills on your application form:

• Presentation at Interview will be assessed on the Technical Understanding (Expert) - assessed using the Head of Data Engineering Capability Framework - https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/data-engineer.html#head-of-data-engineering