Job Description

Genomics England is a global leader in enabling genomic medicine and research, focused on creating a world where everyone benefits from genomic healthcare. Building on the 100,000 Genomes Project, we support the NHS’s world-first national whole genome sequencing service and run the growing National Genomic Research Library, alongside delivering numerous major genomics initiatives. By connecting research and clinical care at national scale, we enable immediate healthcare benefits and advances for the future.

Our mission is to provide the evidence and digital systems so that by 2035 genomics could play a role in up to half of all healthcare interactions, whilst securing the UK’s position as the best place to discover, prove and benefit from genomic innovations.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

Behind the Healthcare and Research outcomes, Genomics England delivers through designing, developing and operating complex healthcare software systems.

We're on the cusp of big changes with the real prospect of genomics becoming the fabric of everyday healthcare through the lifetime - from birth to old age.

Data Engineer

Are you a skilled and proven Data Engineer who’s confident and experienced working at scale, across complex data ecosystems? Keen to take ownership of meaningful pipelines, models and tooling in a unique and impactful environment?

At Genomics England, we deal with some of the most complex clinical and genomic data on the planet, and your work will help researchers, clinicians and scientists use that data to improve patient outcomes.

We’re hiring an established Data Engineer who has a proven track record of moving and transforming large volumes of sensitive healthcare and genomic data, building scalable infrastructure, and enabling high-quality, trustworthy data products.

This is an exciting chance to genuinely help modernise and optimise how genomic data is processed and delivered, with real-world impact.

Note, this opportunity is aimed at experienced, hands-on Data Engineers, not analytics, reporting or data analysis professionals.

What you’ll be doing:

• Designing, building and optimising data pipelines and processing systems
• Working with clinical and genomic data at scale, from acquisition through to transformation, lineage, metadata capture and de-identification
• Confidently using tools like Tableau, Semarchy, Prefect, Aspera and Globus for orchestration, visualisation and secure data transfer
• Supporting teams with robust, well-documented data models and infrastructure
• Building in AWS (cloud-first), and using best practices across storage, compute and orchestration
• Enabling standards in data quality, observability, testing and automation
• Collaborating with product, QA, architecture and engineering teams to build cleanly integrated data services
• Contributing to the development of machine learning and visualisation capabilities
• Helping raise data engineering capability across the chapter and wider organisation

What you’ll bring:

• Strong experience building data pipelines and large-scale processing systems (ETL/ELT)
• Solid hands-on experience with AWS and cloud-first data engineering
• Background in life sciences, healthcare or public sector tech delivery
• Familiarity with healthcare data standards (e.g. OMOP, FHIR, SNOMED, ICD-10)
• Excellent knowledge of tools like Tableau, Aspera, Semarchy, Prefect and/or Globus
• Strong coding skills (Python preferred), plus experience with CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code
• Proven skills in data visualisation and statistical analysis, with the ability to communicate insights clearly and effectively
• A good understanding of data governance, data modelling and working in regulated environments
• Solid grasp of security, performance and compliance considerations in sensitive data systems

Bonus if you have:

• Experience working with genomic or bioinformatics data
• Knowledge of machine learning pipelines and productionising ML models

This really is an amazing time to join our team, we’re growing, refining how we work with data, and laying the foundations for the next wave of clinical and research innovation.

So, if you’re ready to apply your strong data skills, experience and passion to something that really matters, we’d love to hear from you!

Qualifications

Ideally, a master’s degree or equivalent experience working in data, biostatistics, informatics or data analysis or engineering.

Additional Information

Salary From: £73,200
Closing Date: Tuesday 4th August @ 23:00 (UK time)

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we’re continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days’ holiday, plus bank holidays, plus additional leave for long service, and also the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), an Electric Vehicle salary sacrifice scheme and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England’s policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.

Culture

We have four key behaviours that represent what we would like Genomics England to feel like and the culture we want to encourage, in order for us to achieve our mission. These behaviours help us all work well together, deliver on our outcomes, celebrate our successes and share feedback with each other. You can read about these and other aspects of our culture here Culture | Genomics England

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.