Data Architect

Data Architect (Azure) | Databricks/Fabric | Outside IR35 | London & Remote

Rate: market rates, outside IR35

Location: Remote, UK. Occasional London attendance

Duration: 6 months initial, likely extension

Start: Immediate

Data Architect required for a greenfield Azure data platform build. No legacy estate and no migration. The end client is a newly formed organisation whose service is expected to operate at national scale following incoming legislation, so the platform must be architected for very significant growth.

The engagement is in discovery, completing within the next three to four weeks, before moving into design and delivery. The tech stack recommendation is still open, with Databricks and Microsoft Fabric the likely direction and ADF or Snowflake as outside options. Azure is confirmed.

Responsibilities

Own the target data architecture, from conceptual through logical to physical design

Lead the tech stack recommendation and supporting rationale

Produce data models and integration patterns built for national scale volumes

Present and defend best practice to a client team building its own capability

Work alongside the enterprise architects, integrations architect and data governance specialist

Remain hands on where needed to unblock delivery

Essential

Enterprise scale data platform architecture, greenfield or major replatform

Conceptual, logical and physical data modelling. Dimensional and data vault both useful

Lakehouse and medallion patterns, batch and streaming ingestion, event driven design

Databricks and/or Microsoft Fabric at architecture level

Azure Data Factory, Synapse, Azure SQL, Data Lake Storage Gen2

Advanced SQL, Python or PySpark, Spark optimisation, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog

Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, Terraform or Bicep

Entra ID, Key Vault, private endpoints, RBAC

UK GDPR and DPA 2018 in practice, including public personal data

Consultancy, systems integrator or large corporate background with strong client facing skills

Desirable<...