Senior Data Engineering Manager

Location: Dorking, Surrey, UK, London, Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

Who are we?

We’re a specialist employee benefits provider, striving to create healthy, happy workplaces. As part of the international Unum Group, we’re on a collective mission to help the working world thrive.

The role

What will you be doing?

What will you bring?

We are seeking a Senior Data Engineering Manager to modernise Unum’s cloud and on‑prem data estate, building scalable, automated platforms and pipelines from first principles. You’ll set modern engineering standards, provide hands‑on technical and people leadership, and drive the shift toward reusable, product‑focused data assets for analytics and AI.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead, coach and line‑manage data engineers, developing capability and a high‑performance culture.
• Provide senior engineering leadership across cloud and on‑prem platforms to ensure scalable, secure, reliable solutions.
• Maintain engineering best practices across patterns, code quality, testing, observability, documentation and data integrity.
• Design and deliver data platforms, pipelines, infrastructure and tooling using modern, automated engineering approaches.
• Reduce technical debt through remediation, refactoring and legacy technology migration.
• Own end‑to‑end delivery across timelines, quality, resources, risks and third‑party vendors.
• Collaborate with Architecture, Governance, Product, Data Science and Insights teams to ensure strategic and technical alignment.
• Ensure all solutions meet required security, governance, regulatory and operational standards.
• Communicate decisions, options, risks and progress clearly to senior stakeholders and non‑technical partners.

Knowledge & Skills:

• Proven experience building modern data platforms and pipelines from scratch.
• Strong background transforming legacy/on‑prem estates into cloud or hybrid architectures.
• Deep expertise in Azure data services (ADLS, Synapse/SQL, Databricks, ADF/Fabric, Event Hub/Kafka, Functions, Key Vault, Purview).
• Solid understanding of data platform engineering (storage/compute patterns, streaming/batch, APIs, orchestration, schema design, performance tuning and reliability).
• Demonstrated leadership in engineering or platform management roles.
• Strong grounding in data governance, privacy, lineage and data quality.
• Evidenced ownership of technical quality and technical‑debt remediation.

The successful candidate can expect: 

• Generous Bonus
• Car Allowance
• Private Medical Insurance
• DC pension scheme 
• Life, medical and income Insurance 

• Access to remote GP, nutrition coaching, personal training, unlimited mental health support and medical 2nd opinion 
• 27 days holiday with the option to buy and sell holiday up to 5 days (plus Bank Holidays) 
• Salary sacrifice electric car scheme with free on site electric chargers.  #LI-VI1   #LI-Hybrid

Why join us?

At Unum, we’ve created a workplace where people feel supported to progress and grow, and can see their ambitions coming to life.

As a part of our commitment to creating an inclusive workplace, we actively encourage applications from those with disabilities and those with long-term health conditions.

If you meet the essential criteria for the role and choose to opt in to the scheme during your application, you will be offered an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme.

If you need assistance and/or reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or recruiting process, please send a request to [email protected].

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer.

Company: