Senior Data Engineer - London

Salary: £64,000 - 104,000 per year

Requirements:

• Hands-on data engineering experience, including design and delivery of complex pipelines and data models in a cloud environment
• Strong proficiency in SQL; solid Python and/or PySpark capability
• Demonstrable experience with Databricks, Apache Spark, and Delta Lake architecture
• Proven ability to design and own enterprise-grade canonical data models across multiple upstream source systems
• Experience integrating data from APIs and diverse upstream platforms at scale
• Azure cloud platform experience
• Strong data governance and quality mindset, including validation, reconciliation, and audit frameworks
• Ability to make independent technical design decisions and operate with a high degree of autonomy in a lean, fast-moving team
• Experience providing technical guidance or oversight to other engineers
• Familiarity with HR, people, or workforce data systems such as Workday, BambooHR, HiBob, or Greenhouse
• Experience with regulatory or compliance-driven data requirements such as EU Pay Transparency, GDPR, or ESG/CSRD
• Experience designing multi-layer data architectures for downstream analytics and reporting consumption
• Understanding of data product thinking and building governed data assets for analytics, reporting, and executive audiences
• Experience working in a federated, globally distributed organisation with complex source system landscapes

Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and implementation of core data pipelines that ingest, transform, and model people data from multiple HR and workforce systems into a governed, enterprise-grade data model built on Databricks and Delta Lake
• Own and evolve canonical people data structures across the global people data platform
• Define and enforce schemas, ingestion patterns, and transformation logic that support scalability, consistency, and downstream reporting, analytics, and regulatory use cases
• Make day-to-day architectural and design decisions independently on schema design, data standardisation approaches, and pipeline patterns
• Ensure pipelines and data models are designed and maintained to support statutory requirements, including the EU Pay Transparency Directive, UK Gender Pay Gap reporting, and ESG/CSRD workforce data obligations
• Partner closely with enterprise data and business platforms teams to ensure the people data architecture aligns with broader data platform standards, governance frameworks, and integration patterns
• Provide senior technical guidance, code review, and architectural oversight to other data engineers within the team
• Embed data quality checks, validation frameworks, and governance controls into pipeline and model design to ensure the platform remains accurate, audit-ready, and defensible for executive and regulatory reporting

Technologies:

• Azure
• Cloud
• Databricks
• Support
• Marketing
• Python
• PySpark
• SQL
• Spark

More:

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the worlds leading brands. We unite media intelligence and data solutions, creativity, production, enterprise solutions and strategic counsel in a single company, powered by our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help clients navigate change and deliver transformational growth. We work with the worlds most valuable brands across 100+ markets with deep local expertise. Our people are central to our success, and we are committed to creativity, belonging and continuous learning. We are hiring a Senior Data Engineer to join our People Data & Insights team as the technical anchor for our global people data product. This is a hands-on senior role with full autonomy over schema, ingestion patterns, data standardisation and pipeline architecture in a complex, globally scaled environment. We work in a hybrid model, with teams in the office around four days a week, and we offer passionate people, scale and opportunity, and challenging, stimulating work. We are an equal opportunity employer and foster a culture of respect and belonging.

last updated 36 week of 2026