People Data Engineering Apprentice (Buro Happold Limited)

At Buro Happold, people are at the heart of everything we do - and understanding our people through data is key to shaping a better, more informed organisation.

As a People Data Engineering Apprentice, you’ll play an active role in building and maintaining the systems that help us transform raw data into meaningful insights. Over the course of your Level 5 Data Engineer apprenticeship, you’ll develop your technical and professional skills while working on real projects that make a difference globally. You’ll be supported by experienced colleagues, a structured on-the-job learning plan, and a strong early careers community, helping you develop the technical, professional, and problem solving skills to thrive in data.

What will I be doing?

You’ll be part of the People Data & Solutions team, supporting the end-to-end data lifecycle: ingestion, storage, transformation, and quality - so that analysts, data scientists, and business teams can rely on trusted insights.

Data Engineering & Technical

• Work with people data models to understand how data is structured and used.
• Help design, build, and maintain data pipelines from structured, semi structured, and unstructured sources.
• Support ETL processes: clean, validate, and transform data for downstream use.
• Monitor pipelines, investigate issues, identify root causes, and support fixes.
• Contribute to data quality frameworks (accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness).
• Support deployment of new data processes and maintain technical documentation.

Data Governance & Compliance

• Follow data governance, privacy, and security standards.
• Maintain accurate records and audit logs.
• Analyse data flows to identify gaps, risks, or inconsistencies.
• Handle confidential information with professionalism.

Operational & Administrative

• Help prepare routine people data reports and dashboards.
• Respond to data access and data quality queries in a timely manner.
• Assist with small-scale data projects, meeting deadlines with strong attention to detail.
• Support the HR Systems Specialist with data-related system updates and improvements.

Collaboration & Continuous Improvement

• Work closely with analysts, data scientists, HR, and business teams to understand data needs.
• Contribute ideas that improve processes, tools, and documentation.
• Stay curious about data engineering, cloud, and AI—bringing new ideas to the team.

• Attention to detail
• Organisation skills
• Problem solving skills
• Microsoft Office
• Interest in data
• Strong communicator
• Professional and approachable
• Prioritising multiple tasks
• Able to adapt to change
• Collaborative and respectful
• Proactive
• Accountable

• English and Maths GCSE, grade Level 2 (Essential)