Hybrid Data Architect – SFIA 5

at Zaizi

• Job title: Data Architect – SFIA 5
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Mid level, Senior
• Salary: Not specified
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: Cloud
• Location requirements: Hybrid, London, United Kingdom

About the role

• Data Architect leading the design and evolution of data architectures for complex digital services. Collaborating with multiple teams to align data solutions with organizational strategy and government standards.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and evolution of data architectures for complex digital services across the UK public sector.
• Work across multiple delivery teams and stakeholders to define coherent, secure and sustainable data architectures that enable analytics, operational reporting and data-driven services.
• Combine hands-on architectural design with leadership, assurance and stakeholder engagement.
• Ensure data solutions align with user needs, organisational strategy, and government standards.

Requirements

• Define and own data architecture designs that support digital services, analytics and operational decision-making.
• Set data architecture principles, standards and patterns that enable consistency across teams while allowing appropriate autonomy.
• Ensure data architectures address the full data lifecycle, including acquisition, storage, usage, sharing, retention and decommissioning.
• Provide technical leadership and assurance across delivery teams, reviewing designs and guiding implementation.
• Align data architecture decisions with user needs, business outcomes, security requirements and organisational risk appetite.
• Support and influence data governance, including metadata management, data quality, lineage and ownership.
• Engage with senior stakeholders and customers to explain architectural trade-offs and support informed decision-making.
• Designing end-to-end data architectures for complex systems, including ingestion, processing, storage, analytics and access layers.
• Strong understanding of data modelling approaches (e.g. conceptual, logical and physical models; analytical and operational models).
• Experience designing architectures for analytics platforms, such as data warehouses, lakehouse-style platforms and domain-oriented data architectures.
• Knowledge of data integration patterns, including batch, event-driven and API-based approaches.
• Applying security-by-design and privacy-by-design principles to data architectures, including access control, classification and auditability.
• Experience working across cloud platforms, remaining vendor-neutral and selecting technologies based on context.
• Familiarity with modern data engineering and analytics tooling, including open-source ecosystems.

Benefits

• 25 days paid holiday, plus bank holidays
• Vitality medical insurance
• Workplace Pension 5% employer contribution
• Group Life Assurance
• Cycle scheme
• 5 days a year for approved Training
• WFH equipment allowance
• Buy / Sell Holiday
• 2 days paid volunteering days
• Flexible working
• Work on exciting projects - make a difference
• Empowered to make decisions
• Encouraged to fail fast and learn quickly
• 1-2-1 and team coaching / training available to all our staff