About the job

Job summary

Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?

Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence? 

Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.

•    Our Vision - To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
•    Our Mission – Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability. 

DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society. 

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.

DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the Northwest, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2026. 

Come and join the DBS community today! 

Job description

As a CPFMI Data Warehouse Developer/Data Engineer you will be responsible for the Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL) of data from various Oracle Business Suite modules, archives, and other feeds into the Contracting, Purchasing and Finance Management Information (CPFMI) data warehouse. The warehouse stores data extracted from CP&F (Contracting, Purchasing and Finance), the Ministry of Defences (MoDs) primary commerce and finance system. The CP&FMI user base is large and diverse. It includes the MoDs Finance, Commercial and  Project Management communities. You will have technical responsibilities across all stages and iterations of ETL design and development. You will model, optimise and support data warehousing solutions based upon functional and technical specifications. Those solutions will enable users to deliver Business Intelligence (BI) reports and dashboards using standard IBM Cognos analytical and report writing tools. 

This is an exciting time to join the CPFMI ETL team. We are about to migrate from IBM DataManager to a new data integration tool named IBM DataStage. The team has also begun to work closely with the Project, Budgeting and Forecasting (PB&F) team as DBS looks to consolidate into a cohesive single data warehousing solution. You will be given sufficient time to familiarise yourself with the new data integration tool. You will receive tailored support from MoD colleagues and contractors to enable you to successfully support and in time lead ETL development. Duties will range from the resolution of incidents to contributions in the delivery of large-scale pan MoD projects.  

This role is within Finance and Commercial DIT Team which supports a large and complex change programme. It is suitable for hybrid working, which is an informal, non-contractual and voluntary arrangement, blending a balance of attendance in the workplace (your permanent duty station in Norcross, Blackpool) and working from home. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post.  There is, however, an expectation that all DBS staff, irrespective of their agreed duty station, will travel to other DBS and/or MOD site(s), as required, to complete all necessary training and to participate in team or additional collaborative activities – detached duty terms may apply. Terms of transfer have been negotiated for DBS posts relocating in the North West. DBS also supports Flexible Working, which can be discussed in more detail at interview.

Responsibilities:

• Accountable to the CPFMI Datastore Technical Lead for the design, development and integration of CP&F ETL solutions.
• Monitoring of the Overnight service logs and management of the CPFMI Datastore Remedy workgroup to ensure incident management performance indicators are met and problems are prevented from reoccurrence. 
• Analysis of the impact of change and incidents on Corporate Services Management Information (CSMI). Interpretation of data and processes to provide meaningful and actionable insights. 
• Effective Customer engagement to understand customer requirements, manage expectations and ensure customer satisfaction.
• Liaison with the CP&F, Live Service and Test teams to manage satisfactory restoration of service.
• Support ETL modelling for internally delivered change and for ETL input into high level and detailed designs. This includes reverse engineering CP&F and other data models to map, transform and integrate new data feeds from multiple systems into the CSMI data warehouse. 
• Use of agreed standards and tools to design, code, test and document programs and scripts from agreed specifications to deliver efficient and effective solutions.
• Engagement with CSMI colleagues, Oracle resource and external contractors to exchange knowledge, review and progress incidents and change. Collaboration and exploitation of shared skills and work practices to develop efficiencies and improve service.
• Delivery of data services that are fit for purpose, resilient, scalable and future-proof.
• Liaison with Project Management and other appropriate parties to provide timely updates, manage risk and address blockers. 
• Observation of security and configuration control policies and conventions.
• Execution of test and release processes to minimise risk and ensure that planned milestones are met.
• Recognition, identification, and exploitation of opportunities for innovation, transformation, and continuous improvement. Exploration of new, more efficient and effective ways of deriving value from data. Optimising and designing data to support business opportunities.
• Participation in the design and delivery of ETL development to support the rework of the CPF Presentation schema and migration from the DataManager development tool to DataStage.

Person specification

The successful candidate will have:
Essential

• Demonstrable experience in programming/software development
• Proficiency in the use SQL or other transferable programming languages 
• Excellent team working skills, including the ability to work with a number of different business areas.
• Experience of working in a project driven work environment with conflicting priorities and customer

Desirable

• Understanding of Data Warehousing concepts
• Experience in the use of Toad by Quest or SQL Developer
• Familiarity with Data integration tools, ideally IBM DataStage or DataManager
• Knowledge of CP&F or the Oracle E-Business Suite.
• Demonstrable skill in developing and testing of IT systems.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £35,290, Ministry of Defence contributes £9,528 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Please ensure that at the application and interview stages of the campaign you review the Success Profiles Framework to assist you in the demonstration of your skills and experience.

Your suitability for the role will be assessed using the Success Profile elements that have been chosen for this campaign. Each element will be scored accordingly, and the successful candidate will be appointed on merit.

Applications will be sifted on all Success Profile elements, but in the event of a high number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted on your

Primary: Behaviour - Changing and Improving , Secondary: Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service . In this instance the remaining elements will be tested at interview.

At application stage you will be assessed against the following:

Behaviours:

• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service

Experience: 

• CV: please include you Job history & full qualiforcation details 
• Personal Statement: In no more than 750 words, please detail your experience of the following:

1. Demonstrable experience in programming/software development
2. Proficiency in the use SQL or other transferable programming languages
3. Excellent team working skills, including the ability to work with a number of different business areas.
4. Experience of working in a project driven work environment with conflicting priorities and customers. 

Technical:

• SFIA - Programming/software development
• SFIA - Data Engineering

At interview you will be assessed against the above (behaviours), PLUS the following:

Technical:

• SFIA - Programming/software development
• SFIA - Data Engineering

In the rare case where individuals have exact matching scores, the order of merit will be determined based on the behaviour scores at interview in the following order:

1. Behaviour - Changing and Improving
2. Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
3. Technical - SFIA - Data Engineering
4. Technical - SFIA - Programming/software development

If candidate scores are still exact, the merit order will then be determined on the sift score in the below order or priority:

1. Experience - CV
2. Experience - Personal statement
3. Behaviour - Changing and Improving
4. Behaviour - Managing a Quality Service
5. Technical - SFIA - Programming/software development
6. Technical - SFIA - Data Engineering

We want to offer opportunities to all who are successful at interview for our roles, but this isn’t always possible, so we do hold candidates on an active reserve list for 12 months.

Application sifting is scheduled to take place on week commencing:07/01/2024

Interviews are currently taking place remotely via Ms Teams and will be conducted on the week commencing 21/01/2024

A minimum of 2 full working days’ notice will be provided for interviews.We endeavour to stick to these dates, but these are subject to change around business needs.

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity. There is a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

If you need to advise us that you need additional help or reasonable adjustments for the recruitment process, please contact: DBS-EnhancedRecruitmentTeam@mod.gov.uk

MOD Recruitment Satisfaction Survey – we may contact you regarding your experience to help us improve our customer satisfaction. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. You may however be given the opportunity to provide additional information to help us improve our service which includes the collection of some personal data as defined by the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). The MOD Privacy Notice sets out how we will use your personal data and your rights.

As a result of the changes to the UK immigration rules which came into effect on 1 January 2021, the Ministry of Defence will only offer sponsorship for a skilled worker visa under the points-based system, where a role has been deemed to be business critical. 

The role currently being advertised has not been assessed as business critical and is therefore NOT open to applications from those who will require sponsorship under the points-based system. Should you apply for this role and be found to require sponsorship, your application will be rejected, and any provisional offer of employment withdrawn. 

To assist with your application please find attached -  

DBS Candidate Information Guide - Working for Defence Business Services - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 

Technical skills Framework guide - https://sfia-online.org/en

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.