Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Job Type: Full Time
Employment Type: Permanent
Experience Level: Senior
Senior Data ArchitectThe Opportunity
We are looking for a Senior Data Architect to shape the data foundations behind critical business and technology initiatives. This is an opportunity to take ownership of enterprise data architecture while working with engineering, analytics, cloud, security, product, and business teams to turn complex data requirements into scalable solutions.
You will help define how data is collected, integrated, stored, governed, secured, and made available for analytics and business applications. The role combines strategic architecture with practical technical leadership, giving you the opportunity to influence technology decisions, modernize data platforms, and establish standards that support long-term growth.
The successful candidate will bring strong experience across modern data architecture, cloud platforms, data modelling, integration, governance, and enterprise technology. You will be expected to challenge existing approaches, identify opportunities for improvement, and provide clear architectural direction while remaining close enough to delivery to ensure solutions are practical and achievable.
What You'll Own
- Define enterprise data architecture strategies, standards, principles, and technology roadmaps.
- Design scalable data platforms supporting analytics, reporting, applications, and business intelligence.
- Develop logical, conceptual, and physical data models aligned with business and technical requirements.
- Lead data modernization initiatives involving cloud migration, platform consolidation, and architecture transformation.
- Design data solutions across AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Snowflake, Databricks, or comparable platforms.
- Establish effective data integration patterns using APIs, ETL/ELT pipelines, event-driven architecture, and streaming technologies.
- Partner with data engineers to translate architectural designs into reliable production solutions.
- Define data governance, quality, metadata, lineage, security, retention, and access-management standards.
- Evaluate emerging data technologies and make recommendations based on scalability, performance, security, cost, and business value.
- Work with cybersecurity teams to ensure data architectures meet enterprise security and compliance requirements.
- Lead architecture reviews, technical workshops, proof-of-concept initiatives, and design discussions.
- Produce architecture diagrams, technical specifications, decision records, standards, and implementation guidance.
- Identify performance, scalability, integration, and operational risks and develop appropriate mitigation strategies.
- Provide technical leadership and mentoring to data engineers, analysts, architects, and delivery teams.
What You'll Bring
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Technology, or a related technical discipline; equivalent professional experience may be considered.
- 8+ years of experience across data architecture, data engineering, database engineering, analytics platforms, or enterprise technology.
- Strong experience designing enterprise data architectures, data models, integration strategies, and modern data platforms.
- Hands-on knowledge of SQL, relational databases, data warehouses, data lakes, lakehouses, and distributed data technologies.
- Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud.
- Practical experience with technologies such as Snowflake, Databricks, Azure Synapse, Amazon Redshift, BigQuery, or comparable platforms.
- Strong understanding of ETL/ELT, APIs, data pipelines, event streaming, batch processing, and real-time data integration.
- Knowledge of Python, SQL, Spark, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, or comparable data engineering technologies.
- Strong understanding of data governance, metadata management, data lineage, data quality, master data, and information security.
- Experience supporting enterprise data migration, modernization, integration, and transformation programmes.
- Excellent architecture, problem-solving, communication, stakeholder management, and technical leadership skills.
- Ability to explain complex data architecture concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Experience working with Agile delivery teams and modern DevOps practices.
- Preferred certifications include AWS Certified Data Engineer, Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Engineer Associate, Google Professional Data Engineer, Databricks certifications, or comparable industry qualifications. Candidates must have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom.
What Makes This Opportunity Different
You will have genuine influence over how data is structured and used across the organization. Rather than focusing solely on individual projects, you will help establish architecture decisions and engineering practices that can support future products, analytics capabilities, automation, and business growth.
Equal Opportunity Employer
We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.
Job Type: Full Time, Permanent
Pay: £98,000.00-£100,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Casual dress
- Free fitness classes
- Free parking
- Gym membership
- On-site gym
- On-site parking
Work authorisation:
- United Kingdom (required)
Work Location: In person
