Trainee Data Engineer Apprenticeship

Salary: £28,300
Assessment centre dates: June
Start date: Monday 7th September 2026

Who we are:

interactive investor is an award-winning investment platform that puts its customers in control of their financial future.

We’ve been helping investors for nearly 30 years. We’ve seen market highs and lows and been resilient throughout. We’re now the UK’s number one flat-fee investment platform, with assets under administration approaching £75 billion and over 500,000 customers.

For a simple, flat monthly fee we provide a secure home for your pensions, ISAs and investments. We offer a wide choice of over 20,000 UK and international investment options, including shares, funds, trusts and ETFs.

We also bring impartial, expert content from our award-winning financial journalists, highly engaged community of investors, and daily newsletters and insights.

Purpose of the role:

As a Trainee Data Engineer, you will support ii to operate, maintain, and continually improve the firm’s Data Platform. Working alongside experienced Data Engineers, you will help ingest, transform, and model datasets such as customer, transaction, marketing, web analytics, and market data into a trusted source for analytics and Data Science/ML/AI.

You will develop core data engineering skills by contributing to Python and SQL pipelines, orchestrated with Dagster, and delivered into our Snowflake Data Warehouse, following established patterns, standards, and runbooks. The role will provide exposure to data quality, observability, security, and governance, and may support simple data presentation via Streamlit and, occasionally, Power BI.

You will support Intelligent Automation initiatives, learning how to embed AI-assisted steps safely within data workflows, under appropriate controls, review, and governance.

Key responsibilities/what you’ll do:

• Support the daily Data Platform run under guidance, including checking scheduled jobs, investigating first-line failures using runbooks, and escalating issues appropriately
• Contribute to developing and maintaining ELT/ETL pipelines using Dagster (assets, jobs, schedules, sensors), following established patterns for dependency management, retries, and alerting, and proposing improvements via code review
• Support the build and maintenance of warehouse structures (e.g., star schemas, snapshot tables, and slowly changing dimensions) under guidance
• Draft, test, and document reusable SQL queries and data extracts for Data Analysts and business users, promoting self-service where appropriate, and ensuring outputs are peer-reviewed where needed
• Support triage and delivery of Data Request tickets for ad-hoc data needs by gathering requirements, drafting queries, validating outputs with a reviewer, and documenting outcomes
• Help maintain data documentation (data dictionaries, lineage notes, and catalogue updates), keeping definitions clear, consistent, and up-to-date
• Support integrations for data pipelines with business systems and APIs, following existing templates and secure coding practices, and escalating risks or uncertainty early
• Run and extend data quality checks and basic observability (e.g., row counts, freshness checks, schema checks), raising anomalies promptly and supporting root-cause investigation
• Learn performance and cost best practices in Snowflake (e.g., query optimisation, clustering, and efficient file formats), and suggest or apply improvements with appropriate approval and support
• Work to strong DataOps practices: Git-based version control, pull requests, code reviews, CI/CD, and environment promotion, with coaching and support
• Follow privacy, security, and governance requirements by applying access controls, handling data appropriately, and maintaining auditability where required
• As required, support simple operational MI or ad-hoc outputs via Streamlit and, occasionally, Power BI, using established datasets and agreed definitions
• Complete agreed training and/or required learning modules, evidence, and assessments (for apprenticeship routes), as part of the programme, and apply learning in day-to-day work

About the apprenticeship:

As a Trainee Data Engineer, you’ll develop the technical knowledge plus the professional skills and behaviours to work within our exciting and fast-paced Data and Innovation team, gaining valuable work experience plus achieving a qualification through a structured apprenticeship programme to kick-start your career.

Through the Data Engineer apprenticeship, you will learn and grow technical knowledge in the following areas:

• Data engineering concepts and data product management
• Data quality, governance, and ethics
• Data pipelines, automation, and advanced data engineering techniques
• Emerging trends and technologies in data engineering

By the end of the apprenticeship, you will achieve your Level 5 Data Engineer Apprenticeship. Typically, the apprenticeship will take around 18–20 months to complete.

Please note: We will do our utmost efforts to respond to all applicants. However, due to the high volume of applications we're currently receiving, if you haven't been contacted within 30 days of application, please consider your application as unsuccessful.

To apply for this role, you will need:

• To be at least 18 years old as of 1st September 2026

• Be a UK/EEA citizen or have lived in the UK/EEA continuously for the last 3 years
• To be eligible to work in the UK and not in full-time education
• To have achieved, or predicted to achieve in 2026, a level 3 qualification, such as A-levels or equivalent
• Maths and English GCSE (or equivalent) grades A* to C (new grades 9 to 4)
• You must not hold an existing qualification at the same or higher level in a similar subject
• An understanding of SQL, Python, core database concepts, and data modelling is desirable
• A level 4 qualification in Data or Computer Science is desirable

• Group Personal Pension Plan

• Life Assurance and Group Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance – provided by Bupa
• Staff discounts on our investment products
• Personal & well-being fund – supporting your physical and mental wellness
• Retail discounts – savings at a wide range of high street and online retailers
• Voluntary flexible benefits – tailor your benefits to suit your lifestyle

Please Note: We will do our utmost efforts to respond to all applicants. However, due to the high volume of applications we're currently receiving, if you haven't been contacted within 30 days of application, please consider unsuccessful.

interactive investor operates in accordance with the UK Equality Act 2010. We welcome applications from individuals of all ages, disabilities, gender identities, marital status, pregnancy/maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. We are committed to treating all applicants fairly and making reasonable adjustments where needed to support disabled applicants. We actively prevent all forms of discrimination, harassment, and victimisation—whether direct, indirect, associative, or perceptive