Oracle Database Administration Specialist

Oracle Database Specialist

Manchester / Leeds - hybrid

6 months - likely to be extended

£600 - £700 per day inside IR35 - umbrella only

Hold active SC clearance - eligible candidates will be considered

The Oracle Database Administrator plays a critical role in ensuring the stability, performance, and integrity of our core data platforms. Operating independently, the DBA safeguards the operational continuity of key systems by maintaining resilient databases, optimising performance, and resolving complex issues that directly impact service availability. This role underpins smooth project delivery by providing expert guidance across development, QA, and infrastructure teams, ensuring that databases remain secure, performant, and fit for purpose throughout ongoing change. Their expertise enables the wider organisation to implement functional solutions with confidence, supported by robust data foundations that meet stringent operational and regulatory requirements.

What you'll be doing - your accountabilities

• Delivers stable, secure, and high-performing Oracle database environments that underpin critical services and ensure positive operational outcomes.
• Leads collaboration with development, QA, and operational teams to understand technical requirements, diagnose database-related issues, and shape effective data solutions.
• Implements clear, robust recommendations and technical documentation, including backup strategies, performance improvement actions, and configuration standards, while identifying risks, gaps, and dependencies.
• Designs and optimises repeatable database patterns, ensuring scalability, resilience, and compliance across production and non-production environments.
• Enables teams to fully leverage database capabilities, providing expert guidance on performance behaviour, schema design impacts, and data lifecycle considerations.
• Strengthens engineering practices by contributing to shared DBA methods, knowledge bases, and operational runbooks, improving organisational efficiency and repeatability.
• Ensures alignment with enterprise security policies, audit requirements, and architectural guardrails, maintaining database configurations that satisfy regulatory and compliance obligations.
• Provides authoritative expertise on Oracle technologies, informing senior leadership on risks, opportunities, and long-term considerations related to the database estate.
• Supports delivery of complex change initiatives, including platform upgrades, patching cycles, performance remediation programmes, and strategic migrations.
• Champions continuous improvement, staying current with Oracle capabilities, performance tuning techniques, and emerging best practices-and applying these to enhance stability and reliability.
• Mentors and supports colleagues across Dev, QA, and ASG, acting as the go-to technical expert for database performance, resilience, recovery processes, and incident resolution.

Skills

• Extensive hands-on experience administering Oracle Database 12c in high-availability, mission-critical environments.
• Proven track record of diagnosing and resolving complex database performance issues, including SQL tuning, AWR/ASH analysis, and optimisation of high-volume transactional workloads.
• Demonstrable experience managing RMAN backup and recovery strategies, including real-world restore scenarios and resilience testing.
• Background in patching, upgrading, and hardening Oracle estates, ensuring security compliance and minimal service disruption.
• Experience supporting development and QA teams, including reviewing schema changes, analysing data behaviours, and advising on query patterns.
• Strong operational experience on Linux platforms, particularly in areas affecting DB performance such as I/O, filesystem layout, and kernel tuning.
• Hands-on experience troubleshooting live service issues, including production incident support, root cause analysis, and stabilisation activities.
• Experience working within regulated or audited environments, with a solid understanding of data protection, access control, and evidential accuracy.
• Familiarity with multi-environment estate management (DEV/TEST/UAT/STAGE/PROD), including promotion workflows and change governance.
• Experience contributing to runbooks, standards, and operational documentation to support repeatable and reliable database operations.
• Comfortable working independently as a subject-matter expert, often being the primary point of escalation for database-related issues.