Apprentice Data Engineer (L5)
DVSA
Birmingham, Bristol, Hayes, Leeds, Newcastle upon Tyne, NOTTINGHAM, Oldham
Closes in 12 days (Sunday 12 July 2026)
Posted on 30 June 2026
Contents
Summary
As an Associate Data Engineer, you will help the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency gather, organise, and use data effectively. You will work in a busy environment alongside experts in policy, data analysis, software, IT, and business analysis to support the agency’s data needs and drive improvements based on solid insights.
- Wage
-
£30,485 a year
Minimum wage rates (opens in new tab)
An attractive package offering generous annual leave - 25 days holiday, increasing up to 30. Pension with an employer contribution of on average of 27%. Cycle to work scheme and Gym membership offers. Discounts schemes on high street names.
- Training course
- Data engineer (level 5)
- Hours
-
Monday - Friday able to work flexible hours within the hours of 8.00am - 6.00pm. Currently colleagues are working a hybrid pattern between home and office (office 60%)
37 hours a week
- Start date
-
Monday 28 September 2026
- Duration
-
2 years
- Positions available
-
1
Work
Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.
What you'll do at work
- With the support of a senior data engineer, provide input to the technical assurance of proposed IT solutions to ensure they meet design expectations, fulfil business requirements, and adhere to best practices
- Document the design/technical specifications in response to agreed user requirements to enable clear communication among stakeholders and maintain consistency for current and future implementations
- Learn and execute data profiling techniques and source system analysis to understand dataset structures, quality, and potential issues for more informed decision-making
- Practice writing clean and maintainable code to promote software sustainability, reduce technical debt, and make future maintenance and extension easier for the team
Where you'll work
You can select which locations you want to apply for in your application on Find an apprenticeship.
This apprenticeship is available in these locations:
- 48 Granby Avenue, Birmingham, B33 0TJ
- Berkeley House, Croydon Street, Bristol, BS5 0DA
- Goods Vehicle Testing Station, Cygnet Way, Hayes, UB4 9BS
- Hillcrest House, 386 Harehills Lane, Leeds, LS9 6NF
- Tyneside House, Skinnerburn Road, Newcastle Business Park, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE4 7AR
- 1 UNITY SQUARE, QUEENSBRIDGE ROAD, NOTTINGHAM, NG2 1AY
- Broadgate, Oldham Broadway Business Park, Chadderton, Oldham, OL9 9XA
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
QA LIMITED
Training course
Data engineer (level 5)
Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)
What you'll learn
Course contents
- Collate, evaluate and refine user requirements to design the data product.
- Collate, evaluate and refine business requirements including cost, resourcing, and accessibility to design the data product.
- Design a data product to serve multiple needs and with scalability, efficiency, and security in mind.
- Automate data pipelines such as batch, real-time, on demand and other processes using programming languages and data integration platforms with graphical user interfaces.
- Produce and maintain technical documentation explaining the data product, that meets organisational, technical and non-technical user requirements, retaining critical information.
- Systematically clean, validate, and describe data at all stages of extract, transform, load (ETL).
- Work with different types of data stores, such as SQL, NoSQL, and distributed file system.
- Identify and troubleshoot issues with data processing pipelines.
- Query and manipulate data using tools and programming such as SQL and Python. Manage database access, and implement automated validation checks.
- Communicate downtime and issues with database access to stakeholders to mitigate the operational impact of unforeseen issues.
- Evaluate opportunities to extract value from existing data products through further development, considering costs, environmental impact and potential operational benefits.
- Maintain a working knowledge of data use cases within organisations.
- Use data systems securely to meet requirements and in line with organisational procedures and legislation.
- Identify new tools and technologies and recommend potential opportunities for use in own department or organisation.
- Optimise data ingestion processes by making use of appropriate data ingestion frameworks such as batch, streaming and on-demand.
- Develop algorithms and processes to extract structured data from unstructured sources.
- Apply and advocate for software development best practice when working with other data professionals throughout the business. Contribute to standards and ways of working that support software development principles.
- Develop simple forecasts and monitoring tools to anticipate or respond immediately to outages and incidents.
- Identify and escalate risks with suggested mitigation/resolutions as appropriate.
- Investigate and respond to incidents, identifying the root cause and resolution with internal and external stakeholders.
- Identify and remediate technical debt, assess for updates and obsolescence as part of continuous improvement.
- Develop, maintain collaborative relationships using adaptive business methodology with stakeholders such as, business users, data scientists, data analysts and business intelligence teams.
- Present, communicate, and disseminate messages about the data product, tailoring the message and medium to the needs of the audience.
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of prototype data products and how these integrate within an organisation’s overarching data infrastructure.
- Assess and identify gaps in existing tools and technologies in respect of implementing changes required.
- Identify data quality metrics and track them to ensure the quality, accuracy and reliability of the data product.
- Selects and apply sustainable solutions to contribute to net zero and environmental strategies across the various stages of product and service delivery.
- Horizon scanning to identify new technologies that offer increased performance of data products.
- Implement personal strategies to keep up to date with new technology and ways of working.
- Collate, evaluate and refine user requirements to design the data product.
- Collate, evaluate and refine business requirements including cost, resourcing, and accessibility to design the data product.
- Design a data product to serve multiple needs and with scalability, efficiency, and security in mind.
- Automate data pipelines such as batch, real-time, on demand and other processes using programming languages and data integration platforms with graphical user interfaces.
- Produce and maintain technical documentation explaining the data product, that meets organisational, technical and non-technical user requirements, retaining critical information.
- Systematically clean, validate, and describe data at all stages of extract, transform, load (ETL).
- Work with different types of data stores, such as SQL, NoSQL, and distributed file system.
- Identify and troubleshoot issues with data processing pipelines.
- Query and manipulate data using tools and programming such as SQL and Python. Manage database access, and implement automated validation checks.
- Communicate downtime and issues with database access to stakeholders to mitigate the operational impact of unforeseen issues.
- Evaluate opportunities to extract value from existing data products through further development, considering costs, environmental impact and potential operational benefits.
- Maintain a working knowledge of data use cases within organisations.
- Use data systems securely to meet requirements and in line with organisational procedures and legislation.
- Identify new tools and technologies and recommend potential opportunities for use in own department or organisation.
- Optimise data ingestion processes by making use of appropriate data ingestion frameworks such as batch, streaming and on-demand.
- Develop algorithms and processes to extract structured data from unstructured sources.
- Apply and advocate for software development best practice when working with other data professionals throughout the business. Contribute to standards and ways of working that support software development principles.
- Develop simple forecasts and monitoring tools to anticipate or respond immediately to outages and incidents.
- Identify and escalate risks with suggested mitigation/resolutions as appropriate.
- Investigate and respond to incidents, identifying the root cause and resolution with internal and external stakeholders.
- Identify and remediate technical debt, assess for updates and obsolescence as part of continuous improvement.
- Develop, maintain collaborative relationships using adaptive business methodology with stakeholders such as, business users, data scientists, data analysts and business intelligence teams.
- Present, communicate, and disseminate messages about the data product, tailoring the message and medium to the needs of the audience.
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of prototype data products and how these integrate within an organisation’s overarching data infrastructure.
- Assess and identify gaps in existing tools and technologies in respect of implementing changes required.
- Identify data quality metrics and track them to ensure the quality, accuracy and reliability of the data product.
- Selects and apply sustainable solutions to contribute to net zero and environmental strategies across the various stages of product and service delivery.
- Horizon scanning to identify new technologies that offer increased performance of data products.
- Implement personal strategies to keep up to date with new technology and ways of working.
Training schedule
- At the end of this apprenticeship, you will hold a Level 5 qualification as a Data Engineer
- Training will be fully supported online with a dedicated skills coach, with support to complete the 6 hours a week off the job learning in the workplace
- Learning will be delivered flexibly online
Requirements
Essential qualifications
GCSE in:
- 3 other subjects (grade 4)
- English (grade 4)
- Maths (grade 4)
Level 3 qualification in:
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- IT skills
- Attention to detail
- Problem solving skills
- Analytical skills
- Team working
About this employer
We are the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, and we are 1 of the 5 executive agencies that make up the Department for Transport. We employ about 4,600 people across Great Britain to help us achieve our mission of keeping Britain moving, safely and sustainably. Our work affects millions of people and thousands of businesses. Most importantly, our work saves lives. We make sure colleagues have the skills to meet the needs of Britain’s road users.
https://careers.dft.gov.uk/our-dft-family/driver-vehicle-standards-agency/ (opens in new tab)
Disability Confident
A fair proportion of interviews for this apprenticeship will be offered to applicants with a disability or long-term health condition. This includes non-visible disabilities and conditions.
You can choose to be considered for an interview under the Disability Confident scheme. You’ll need to meet the essential requirements to be considered for an interview.
After this apprenticeship
Your earnings can increase over time with an apprenticeship. Find out about potential future pay (opens in new tab).
- Within the Civil Service there are lots of opportunities for progression both inside the DVSA and in other departments
- A qualification as a data engineer would qualify you to apply for many future roles
- DVSA and the wider Civil Service has excellent further training opportunities available
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
DVSA
Digital Recruitment Team
digitalrecruitment@dvsa.gov.uk
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC1000264557.
Apply now
Closes in 12 days (Sunday 12 July 2026)
After signing in, you’ll apply for this apprenticeship on the company's website.