Job Title: Lead Data Architect

Location: Malvern (On-site)
Contract: 6 Months
Clearance: SC Clearance required
IR35: Inside
Day Rate: Up to £625 per day

About the Role

We’re looking for an experienced Lead Data Architect to join our Data Science, Engineering and Assurance team. You will take full ownership of the Data Architecture for a major transformation programme, leading the development and governance of the Data Migration Plan and ensuring its successful adoption and deployment within secure customer environments.

This senior-level role blends strategic direction with hands-on delivery, providing technical leadership to Data Engineers and Analysts while ensuring the platform remains secure, scalable, resilient, and fit for mission-critical use.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the Data Architecture across a large-scale transformation programme.
• Develop, maintain, and govern the Data Migration Plan, ensuring alignment with security and operational requirements.
• Provide technical leadership and set standards, patterns, and data governance frameworks.
• Ensure architectural designs are buildable, testable, supportable, and aligned with user and system needs.
• Work closely with security and assurance teams to support system accreditation and deployment.
• Lead immediate project activity including:
  • Mapping and documenting data flows
  • Identifying structured/unstructured data sources
  • Designing and maintaining data architecture and storage patterns

Required Skills & Experience

You will bring significant expertise, typically 8-12+ years, in data architecture and complex programme delivery, including:

Technical Expertise

• MS SharePoint and SharePoint migration (essential).
• Experience with Esri (highly desirable) or other GIS technologies.
• Strong understanding of Active Directory (highly desirable).
• Deep capability in:
  • Conceptual, logical, and physical data modelling
  • Event-driven microservices and modern data platform patterns (batch, streaming, lakehouse/warehouse, serving/query)
  • Metadata, lineage, data quality and lifecycle governance

Security & Mission-Focused Experience

• Designing for secure and constrained environments, including edge deployments and contested networks.
• Working with classified or sensitive data, ideally in Defence or Government settings.
• Strong security mindset: least privilege, auditability, compliance.

Leadership & Communication

• Proven ability to take an existing architecture, own it, and evolve it through standards, governance, and clear technical direction.
• Comfortable mentoring technical teams and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.