Data Architect – 24 month FTC

Role Overview

• Develop conceptual, logical, and physical data models for operational, analytical, and regulatory workloads.
• Create and maintain data architecture blueprints and reference architectures covering ingestion, integration, storage, lineage, and consumption.
• Define modelling patterns (3NF, dimensional/star, Data Vault, canonical models) and guide teams on when and how to apply them.
• Optimise physical designs for performance, scalability, cost and resilience across cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Synapse, BigQuery).
• Lead design reviews, ensuring models are accurate, high-quality, and aligned with business capabilities and domain boundaries.
• Define data ownership, stewardship models, and contribute to the governance operating framework.
• Build and maintain data dictionaries, business glossaries, critical data elements (CDEs) and metadata standards.
• Ensure all data solutions align with governance policies, including lineage, retention, access, and security requirements.
• Support governance forums and collaborate with business stewards to drive consistent definitions and controlled change.
• Embed data quality rules and dimensions (completeness, timeliness, accuracy, uniqueness, validity, consistency) across ETL/ELT and streaming pipelines.
• Design data quality metrics, alerts, and monitoring frameworks to surface quality issues to stewards and downstream consumers.
• Partner with engineering teams to implement automated DQ checks, profiling, and remediation patterns.
• Ensure DQ scoring and lineage are built into architecture in a systematic and reusable way.
• Lead architectural discovery to capture business needs, translate them into data requirements, and shape programme/solution scope.
• Manage and communicate architectural decisions with senior business and technical stakeholders.
• Navigate ambiguity and stakeholder nuance, ensuring alignment across product teams, SMEs, vendors, and governance bodies.
• Produce high-quality design documentation and present designs to Architecture Review Boards or equivalent governance forums.
• Oversee the implementation of data architectures and ensure engineering teams follow patterns, standards, and best practices.
• Provide technical guidance on integration design, ingestion patterns, transformation methods, caching, orchestration, and storage optimisation.
• Conduct design assurance throughout delivery, ensuring solutions adhere to non-functional requirements (performance, availability, resilience, cost).
• Coach engineers, analysts, and stewards on modelling, data quality, and governance practices.

Requirements

• Proven experience as a Data Architect, Solution Architect with strong data background, or senior data engineer/analyst transitioning into architecture.
• Knowledge of Master and Reference Data Management and experience of integrated associated systems (Infosphere, Alation, Informatica, Ataccama etc)
• Demonstrable expertise in conceptual, logical, and physical data modelling with clear understanding of modelling patterns and trade-offs.
• Strong understanding of data governance frameworks, metadata management, data ownership/stewardship models, and business glossaries.
• Hands-on experience embedding data quality rules, profiling, scoring, and exception management into pipelines.
• Familiarity with modern cloud data platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, Azure Synapse, BigQuery, Redshift, etc.).
• Ability to lead architectural thinking across multiple domains and manage stakeholder complexity.
• Ability to produce high-quality architectural artefacts: blueprints, models, solution designs, integration specifications.
• Experience working in regulated sectors (utilities, financial services, health, etc.) is advantageous.

Tech Stack

• Amazon Redshift
• Azure
• BigQuery
• Cloud
• ETL
• Informatica
• Vault

Benefits

• Competitive salary dependant on skills and experience
• Learning and development opportunities, including mentoring and a range of formal courses and open learning resources.
• Entry into the company annual bonus scheme.
• Annual leave from 26-30 rising with length of service, and the option to purchase up to 5 extra days.
• A ‘Celebration Day’ in addition to public holidays that people can use to celebrate a religious festival or other occasion that is important to them.
• A generous 'double match pension scheme' that doubles the contributions you make (company contribution capped at 12%)
• We offer a range of family benefits including enhanced Maternity, Adoption, Paternity, Shared Parental Leave, Fertility Support Leave and up to 5 full or 10 half days of paid Carers Leave.
• Menopause policy and Reasonable Adjustment policy to help everyone perform at their best.
• Access to our Wellbeing Centre with support for looking after your physical and mental health.
• Discounts at a Range of Retail Outlets through our Tap4Perks scheme
• Discounts on Dental and Medical Insurance through our Tap4Perks scheme through salary sacrifice
• Up to 4 Affinity days a year to volunteer in the community.
• Life Assurance.
• Disability Confident As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to offering interviews to disabled candidates who meet the essential criteria and opt in on the application form.
• Ask the Talent Acquisition lead for the full job description to see all the criteria.
• Affinity Water recognises the benefits of greater diversity in our workforce to better reflect the communities we serve.
• We are committed to building a more inclusive culture where every member of our workforce can thrive.
• You can find out what it’s like to work at Affinity Water through our career site https://www.affinitywatercareers.co.uk/ where our colleagues share their career development stories and you can get a feel for our company culture.