Data Architect

NatWest Group; City of Edinburgh; Remote; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial institution is seeking a Data Architect to design and implement data architectures aligned with enterprise standards. This key role involves collaboration with stakeholders to create scalable solutions, provide technical guidance, and ensure data quality across the organization. The successful candidate will have experience with cloud technologies and be skilled in engaging with diverse teams. This position offers a remote-first working model, enhancing flexibility for team members.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of data management principles and best practices.
• Experience in developing strategic target data architectures.
• Ability to produce clear data architecture diagrams for various audiences.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to design and implementation of data architecture.
• Support adoption of data architecture principles throughout the organization.
• Resolve architectural impediments and provide technical guidance.

Skills

Cloud technologies

Microservices

AI

Stakeholder engagement

Data architecture patterns

ETL process

Tools

AWS Sagemaker

Job description

Join us as a Data Architect

• We’ll look to you to contribute to the design and implementation of data architecture across multiple architecture domains while ensuring alignment with enterprise standards
• You’ll be collaborating with key stakeholders to develop reusable and scalable capabilities, making sure they support the bank’s strategic target data architecture
• This is a chance to support the development of data architectural capability across the bank, sharing knowledge, contributing to the community of practice, and mentoring less - colleagues and members of our data community

What you'll do

As a Data Architect, you’ll be supporting the realisation of the enterprise and data architecture, working as part of development teams throughout the data development lifecycle. This will include providing technical guidance, resolving architectural impediments, and championing the adoption of data architecture patterns and standards. You will be instrumental in ensuring robust and reliable data solutions are built that can support business intelligence, analytics, and decision-making, as well as AI.

You will be an expert in data management principles concerned with designing, creating, deploying and managing our data architecture, with a focus on data quality being at the heart of providing accessible and trusted data.

Your other key responsibilities will include:

• Developing data architecture models and artefacts, making sure that they align with the bank’s strategic target data architecture, templates and toolsets
• Supporting the adoption of domain data architecture enablers, assisting in the creation of playbooks, collaborating with peers, and helping educate stakeholders on best practices and alignment with strategic roadmaps
• Supporting design reviews for change programmes, providing input to make sure solutions align with data architecture principles, standards and best practices, and aim for intentional target state data architecture
• Validating data solution quality, identifying data architectural risks, and escalating significant findings to appropriate stakeholders and in alignment with enterprise processes
• Defining how data will be stored, consumed, integrated and managed by different data entities and systems
• Building effective relationships with all organisational levels so that there is a common understanding of our strategic data architecture goals and objectives
• Working with dynamic cross functional teams including business areas, the central architecture team, solution architects & data engineers, providing a common language and understanding of data architecture
• Monitoring emerging technologies within your domain, identifying potential opportunities or risks and raising them for consideration within the architecture governance framework
• Playing a pivotal role in bringing the architecture community together to enable a common understanding our data architecture strategy through communities of practice etc

The skills you'll need

To excel in this role, you’ll need practitioner knowledge in an area of specialism practices, including a strong understanding of business use cases and emerging trends that drive organisational success. You’ll also have knowledge of modern technologies such as Cloud, microservices and AI, along with agile architecture and DevOps practices, you'll also have strong presentation and stakeholder engagement skills and hands on experience of being able to conceive and portray the "big picture" regarding data architecture to all level of the organisation.

In addition, you’ll need expertise in data management and knowledge of data management best practiceand experience of defining and developing strategic target data architectures that align with organisational objectives, as well as transition states from current to target state. Along with this, you’ll need a good understanding of data lifecycle management and in-depth knowledge ofdata modelling and database design. Experience in AWS Sagemaker would be highly desirable.

Furthermore, you’ll need:

• Experience in producing clear data architecture diagrams at various levels of detail and for different audiences
• Experience of engaging with stakeholders from across the business to define data architectures that deliver tangible business outcomes and knowledge of creating business cases to influence stakeholders
• Experience of collaborative decision-making processes, partnering with business and technology, data and architecture colleagues to evolve data architectural direction, while adhering to key architecture principles and alignment with strategic goals
• Good working knowledge of data mesh principles, an understanding of data products, such as, non-traditional data aspects, including federated data principles and ownership
• Strong experience in ETL, ideally, from previous data engineer roles
• Experience in managing and working in a complex and challenging data environment

Hours

35

Job Posting Closing Date:

28/08/2025 Ways of Working:Remote First