Data Architect – 24 month FTC

Affinity Water

Data Architect responsible for designing scalable architectures for trusted data-driven solutions. Collaborating with stakeholders to shape data governance and architecture strategies.

Posted 7/14/2026full-timeHatfield • 🇬🇧 United KingdomMid-LevelSeniorWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in data architecture, including conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling, while ensuring alignment with governance policies and data quality standards. Proficient in leading architectural design and stakeholder management across various domains and cloud data platforms.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Data Architecture DevelopmentData Governance FrameworksData Quality ManagementCloud Data PlatformsStakeholder Management

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills

Data ModelingData Quality RulesData Ownership ModelsMetadata ManagementETL/ELT PipelinesArchitectural DesignIntegration SpecificationsData ProfilingData StewardshipData Lineage

Soft Skills

LeadershipCommunicationCollaborationProblem-SolvingCoaching

Tools & Technologies

SnowflakeDatabricksAzure SynapseBigQueryRedshiftInfosphereAlationInformaticaAtaccama

Industry Keywords

Regulated SectorsUtilitiesFinancial ServicesHealth

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Amazon RedshiftAzureBigQueryCloudETLInformaticaVault

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

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

What you’ll need

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.

Benefits

Comp & perks

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.