BI engineer job description.
Looking for a business Intelligence engineer or stepping into a technical BI role? This job description explains responsibilities like building ETL pipelines, working with databases, and ensuring data quality. It also covers career advancement into architecture or analytics, and average UK pay rates.
What does a business intelligence engineer do?
A business intelligence engineer builds the data pipelines, infrastructure, and reporting systems that underpin BI insights. They transform raw data into clean, structured formats that analysts and stakeholders can use with confidence.
Responsibilities include building ETL processes, designing data warehouses, managing integrations, and maintaining data quality. They often use SQL, Python, Airflow, and cloud tools like AWS Redshift, BigQuery, or Snowflake.
In startups, they work across the full BI stack. In enterprise settings, BI engineers work alongside architects and analysts to ensure that business users have access to reliable, scalable datasets and dashboards.
Key responsibilities of a business intelligence engineer.
BI engineers develop the backend systems that power business reporting. Their responsibilities typically include:
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Designing and managing ETL pipelines and data workflows
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Building and maintaining data warehouses and marts
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Collaborating with analysts and developers on data modelling
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Ensuring data accuracy, scalability, and high performance
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Implementing access control, data partitioning, and backup strategies
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Automating recurring data processes using Python, SQL, or Airflow
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Supporting the integration of new data sources or tools
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Debugging and resolving data quality or load issues
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Documenting architecture, transformations, and lineage
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Supporting analytics teams with structured, clean datasets
This role blends engineering rigour with data architecture and analytics enablement.
Skills and requirements for a business intelligence engineer.
BI engineers build scalable reporting systems and tools. Employers typically look for:
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3–6 years of experience in data engineering or analytics roles
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Skilled in building and optimising data pipelines
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Experience with ETL tools, APIs, and cloud data platforms
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Strong SQL and scripting abilities
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Familiarity with data warehousing and modelling practices
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Ability to maintain and scale BI infrastructure
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Comfortable working with analytics, product, and engineering teams
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Understanding of data security, access control, and governance
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Confidence documenting systems and managing technical changes
Most BI engineers ensure data infrastructure is accessible and reliable.
Average salary for a business intelligence engineer.
In the UK, the average salary for a business intelligence engineer typically ranges from £42,307 to £65,000, based on data modelling, ELT pipelines, and technical stack proficiency.
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Mid-level engineers tend to earn between £42,307 and £53,000
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Senior engineers building scalable data solutions or cloud integrations may earn between £54,000 and £65,000
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Experience with Redshift, Snowflake, or dbt is often rewarded with higher pay
London and remote-first data teams offer the most competitive salaries.
Career progression for a business intelligence engineer.
A business intelligence engineer builds and manages data infrastructure and tools that enable robust reporting and analytics. This technical role often evolves into architecture, platform leadership, or engineering management. A typical progression path:
BI developer / Data engineer
Creates data pipelines, models tables, and manages reporting layers.
BI engineer
Develops scalable BI infrastructure. Optimises dashboards and integrates data across systems.
Senior BI engineer
Designs system-wide schemas, enforces governance, and enables real-time reporting.
BI architect / Engineering manager
Leads infrastructure planning, data tooling, and cross-team delivery.
Director of data engineering
Owns analytics stack, vendor strategy, and enterprise-wide data architecture.
salary guide
Our UK data salary guide.
BI engineers build the pipelines and infrastructure behind scalable reporting. Compensation should reflect their technical capability and platform experience.
Our UK data salary guide includes salary benchmarks for BI engineering roles, 2024 comparisons, and forward-looking projections through to 2026.
FAQS
Business intelligence engineer FAQs.
BI engineers sit in the middle — ensuring clean, modelled, and accessible data for reporting and decision-making. Unlike data engineers, they focus on usability. Unlike Analysts, they build scalable pipelines and semantic layers.
Data transformation pipelines (often in dbt), warehouse modelling, semantic layers (LookML, Power BI datasets), and ensuring business logic is consistent across dashboards and self-serve tools.
High-volume ecommerce, SaaS, and data-driven B2C companies — where real-time or near-real-time reporting across multiple domains is critical. Mature BI stacks often hinge on strong engineering foundations.
Clear thinking about data modelling layers, a point of view on governance vs flexibility, and experience building for scale (not just a few analysts). Familiarity with versioning, testing, and automation are also strong signals.
Many progress to analytics engineering lead, data platform lead, or head of analytics engineering. Others move into solutions architecture or product-focused data enablement roles.
