Data Architect

Location: Burgess Hill, West Sussex, UK (Hybrid – 3 days/week on-site)

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent / Fixed-Term Contract

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Data Architect to join a high-impact, enterprise-scale financial services transformation initiative. In this role, you will be instrumental in analyzing, designing, and governing data structures across hybrid cloud ecosystems, bridging traditional enterprise relational platforms with high-throughput, distributed NoSQL environments.

You will collaborate directly with cross-functional engineering leads, enterprise architects, and business stakeholders to design scalable, resilient, and well-governed data architectures that support mission-critical financial applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Data Modelling: Develop and maintain domain, conceptual, logical, and physical data models for core financial domains.
• Architecture Strategy: Lead end-to-end data architecture design on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and hybrid environments, ensuring high availability, performance, and disaster recovery.
• Hybrid Storage Ecosystems: Architect robust solutions across enterprise relational systems (Oracle, PostgreSQL) and distributed NoSQL platforms (Cassandra, YugabyteDB).
• Governance & Standards: Establish data modeling conventions, governance principles, metadata standards, and integration patterns across the enterprise.
• Modernization & Migration: Evaluate current-state architectures, recommend optimization paths, and support migration strategies to modern cloud-native architectures.
• Stakeholder Alignment: Translate complex business requirements into clear technical designs and architectural artifacts for technical and non-technical audiences alike.

Candidate Profile & Requirements

• Core Experience: Proven track record as a Data Architect or Enterprise Data Architect delivering large-scale data transformation initiatives.
• Cloud Expertise: Strong hands-on architectural experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) data solutions.
• Database Depth: Deep technical knowledge of:
• Relational platforms: Oracle and PostgreSQL
• Distributed NoSQL engines: Apache Cassandra and YugabyteDB
• Data Modelling Acumen: Strong proficiency in normalization/denormalization, distributed partitioning, and replication strategies; hands-on familiarity with tools such as ER/Studio or Hackolade is highly advantageous.
• Domain Knowledge: Prior background within Financial Services, Banking, Capital Markets, FinTech, or Transactional Systems.
• Communication: Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with demonstrated success managing senior stakeholder relationships.