Data and AI Specialists

Data and AI Engineers & Architects | Cheltenham | £80,000 – £140,000

About the Opportunity

Sanderson G&D are partnering exclusivel y with a fast-growing data consultancy specialising in designing, building, and operating AI-ready data infrastructur e for some of the UK's most complex and sensitive programmes. They work across government and national security, delivering secure, scalable, cloud-native solutions that handle data at scale — in real time and in batch. They are growing and looking for senior data professionals across three disciplines.

Data/AI Archite ct — Shape data strategy and architecture across high-profile, secure programmes. You'll design and implement scalable, cloud-native solutions on AWS and other platforms, provide technical leadership across cross-functional teams, and engage directly with senior stakeholders to translate requirements into actionable technical plans.

AI Platform Enginee rs — Lead the development of backend services for a government client, with a focus on high availability, low latency, and scalability. You'll design, build, and deploy backend features, own continuous deployment pipelines, and operate within agile, cross-functional delivery teams.

Data & AI Enginee rs — Build and maintain secure batch and real-time data pipelines for government clients. You'll work across data ingestion, modelling, and pipeline development, ensuring data is available, reliable, and aligned to target architectures.

What We're Looking For

Across all three roles, the following experience is relevant:

• 5–6+ years in a senior data engineering, architecture, or platform role
• Strong hands-on experience wi th AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, Redshift, Glue, Athena)
• Experience wi th real-time and batch data process ing — Apache Flink, Kafka, Spark, or similar
• Proficiency in one or more o f: Python, Java, Scala
• Experience wi th data modell ing, ETL processes, and distributed systems
• Comfortable working in agile and Dev Ops environments
• Experience in sensitive or regulated data environme nts is highly desirable
• eDV eligibility is an essential requirement — candidates must be a sole UK national

Why This Opportunity?

iThis is not a typical consultancy. The bar to get in is high — deliberately so. You will be working alongside some of the best data engineers in the country, on platforms that genuinely matter. These are not internal IT projects. This is mission-critical infrastructure that underpins national security. Beyond the work itself, this is a business that is growing quickly, investing heavily in its technology, and giving its people real ownership of that journey. If you want to be at the leading edge of secure data infrastructure — surrounded by engineers who take their craft seriously — it is worth a conversation.

Benefits inclide:

• Pension
• Private Medical Insurance (company provided, with buy-up for family)
• Annual wellbeing allowance
• Virtual GP
• Employee Assistance Programme (mental health, legal support, and more)
• Annual training allowance (post-probation)
• Tech scheme and voluntary benefits including dental, critical illness, and travel insurance
• Remote-first working culture

Further Details

• Location: Cheltenham
• Salary: £80,000 – £140,000 depending on role and experience
• Clearance: eDV eligibility essential — sole UK nationals only