Job Description

Senior Manager, Data Engineering – Permanent - £70k - £80k

Join us and be part of a mission-driven, independent publisher. You’ll work with a diverse group of people who share a passion for empowering researchers, educators, and institutions to shape the future.

About Sage:

Sage is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources with a growing range of technologies to enable discovery, access, and engagement. Believing that research and education are critical in shaping society, Sara Miller McCune founded Sage in 1965. Today, we are controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining our independence and mission indefinitely. 

Our guaranteed independence means we’re free to:

• Do more – supporting an equitable academic future, furthering disciplines that drive social change, and helping social and behavioural science make an impact
• Work together – building lasting relationships, championing diverse perspectives, and co-creating resources to transform teaching and learning
• Think long-term – experimenting, taking risks, and investing in new ideas

About Our Team:

Our Data Engineering team sits at the heart of Sage's evolving technology and data landscape, building the foundations that enable teams across the organisation to make better use of data, analytics and insights. We are entering an exciting period of transformation, with an opportunity to rethink how the function is structured, how we work, and the technology and standards that will support us into the future.

You’ll join a collaborative, globally connected Technology organisation and work closely with Engineering, Product and business leaders to shape a modern, scalable and secure data engineering capability. This is a team where you’ll have the opportunity to make a significant impact, developing existing talent, bringing in new capabilities and creating an inclusive culture of learning, innovation and accountability.

Role Overview:

To be a strategic partner to Technology leadership, defining the future of Data Engineering at Sage. This role will assess the current team's state, provide input on the design of the ideal future state, make decisions about role redesign and hiring, upskill the existing team and construct a new data engineering function largely from the ground up. The data estate this role builds must reliably meet the distinct needs of multiple business units, providing the robust, functional, and secure foundation the organisation needs for data, analytics and decision-making.

Your New Role:

• Shape the data engineering transformation strategy in line with Technology's broader direction, and drive its execution through prioritised, actionable initiatives that address gaps, risks and opportunities to ensure alignment across technology areas and leadership to produce streamlined collaboration, efficient delivery, and high-quality solutions.
• Comprehensively assess current processes, tooling, skills, tech stack, and automation maturity across the organisation’s data space.
• Assess current team capability and structure, and design and implement a hiring and role-redesign plan to build the function needed to achieve the target state.
• Establish data centric success measures for the data engineering team, setting baseline metrics and defining KPIs, dashboards, and success criteria to track progress and value realisation.
• Develop and govern the data roadmap in partnership with product and business leadership, ensuring a phased, outcomes-driven approach aligned to data engineering, product, and business priorities, with clear achievements and measurable results.
• Set data engineering standards and operating principles, including frameworks, tooling strategy, CI/CD integration, test management and defect tracking practices.
• Partner with and influence Engineering and Product leadership to embed quality by design, align on data responsibilities, and ensure datasets and semantic models are developed that provide the greatest value.
• Provide transparent, data‑driven leadership reporting, communicating progress, assessing potential organisational risks, and make recommendations to other senior technology leadership to enable informed decision‑making.
• Embed documentation, playbooks, and knowledge-sharing practices that ensure the function is resilient and not dependent on any single individual.
• Coach, mentor and develop a distributed team of data engineering professionals to empower and upskill for future success.

Can you be our new Senior Manager, Data Engineering?

• Deep technical expertise in data engineering with a broad commercial understanding of how to implement solutions that are robust enough to support multiple business units.
• Significant leadership experience managing, mentoring and coaching a large global data engineering team, with a collaborative, inclusive leadership style that fosters innovation, learning, and accountability.
• Broad and deep experience of complex enterprise-level data initiatives demonstrating depth of experience and the ability to anticipate, diagnose and proactively address emerging challenges, translating vision into executable plans.
• Experience setting up CI/CD pipelines and applying AI tools to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the data engineering team.
• Strong communicator and influencer, including the ability to explain technology solutions in business terms, and establish partnerships with key collaborators across Technology and the wider organisation.
• Able to define structure and direction in an environment where processes and standards are still being established.
• Deep expertise with data engineering frameworks and tools (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake, Fabric, or equivalent).

Overview of benefits:

• 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with 2 additional floating personal days.
• Hybrid working up to 2 days per week in office and a home working allowance.
• Life assurance, income protection, and travel insurance.
• Private medical cover and access to the company doctor.
• Tuition scheme and support for pursuing professional qualifications, including access to Sage books and journals.
• Variety of snacks and beverages available in the office.
• Healthy lifestyle reimbursement and anniversary trips.
• Access to Company loans (season ticket loan, rental deposit loan, cycle loan).

We’re a Disability Confident Employer (Level 1). If you’d like to apply under this scheme, please let us know in your application.

We’re committed to making our recruitment process accessible and inclusive. If you’d like to request reasonable adjustments, please email humanresources@sagepub.co.uk. Please note we only accept applications via email if an adjustment has been agreed.

Closing date for applications: October 10, 2026

To ensure we can give each application the attention it deserves, we may consider bringing the closing date forward. Therefore, we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to ensure it is considered.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At Sage, we are committed to building a diverse and inclusive team and to sustaining a culture that celebrates diversity, encourages authenticity, and builds a deep sense of belonging. We encourage applications from all members of society irrespective of age, disability, sex or gender identity, sexual orientation, colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion, or belief as crafting value through diversity is what makes us strong.