Senior Research Data Engineer

About The Role

This full-time post is offered as a fixed term contract and is funded by South West SDE programme from July 2026 until June 2027. In line with the University’s fair employment for all principles, any further funding opportunities identified will be reviewed and discussed during the contract.

This role offers the opportunity for hybrid working – some time on campus and some from home.  

We welcome applications from candidates interested in working part-time hours or job-sharing arrangements.

The NHS South West Secure Data Environment (SWSDE) is part of a national programme developing secure infrastructure for research that requires access to sensitive health data. The SWSDE aims to provide faster, fairer and safer access to health and care data from the South West for research.

To achieve this, the programme will create a secure environment to bring together regional health and care data from primary care, acute, community, social care and multi-modal sources for research.

About you:

You are an experienced data engineer or data scientist with a strong foundation in building secure, scalable and well documented data pipelines. Ideally, you have experience working with clinical data (e.g. SNOMED, ICD, EHR systems) and an understanding of data standards such as OMOP.

You enjoy working collaboratively with clinicians, researchers, technical teams and external stakeholders. You can translate complex technical issues for different audiences and thrive in environments that require creative problem solving, high quality communication and the ability to balance competing priorities.
You are motivated by the opportunity to make a real contribution to the future of data driven healthcare research in the South West and nationally. You are proactive, detail oriented, and keen to help shape new processes as the programme scales.

About the role:

This role will join a SWSDE cluster homed at the University of Exeter supporting researchers to access the SWSDE for health data research projects.

The Senior Research Data Engineer will play a central part in shaping the technical foundations of the South West Secure Data Environment, SWSDE. You will work with NHS partners, researchers and technical colleagues (including at the Bristol-based BRIDE hub), to create high quality data pipelines and research ready datasets that enable safe and efficient use of health and care data. The role blends hands on engineering with technical leadership, and it offers the opportunity to contribute to a programme that is establishing new standards for secure data access across the region.

You will lead the transformation of a wide range of clinical datasets into structured, well documented formats that support future research. You will help ensure that all dataset development meets agreed standards for reproducibility, validation, information governance and auditability.

You will also act as a technical partner for SWSDE users. This includes working with clinicians and researchers to understand study requirements, helping shape data specifications, supporting dataset onboarding, and communicating technical considerations clearly and confidently. As a senior member of the team, you will contribute to national networks and best practice communities, mentor colleagues and support the development of processes and technical capabilities across the programme.

Further information

Please contact Henry Ireland (Programme Director, SWSDE) with any questions about the role: H.Ireland2@exeter.ac.uk

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