Data Lead

Pivotal; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Pivotal is building a modern data platform (Pivotal Insights) to unify data from across the group into one common model. The Data Lead role is hands-on and demands building as well as leading, with responsibility for the platform as it scales and new firms join.

You will own data pipelines, governance and semantic models while collaborating with finance and insights teams to deliver trusted data for decision making.

Qualifications

• Production data engineering on the Microsoft data stack.
• Fabric experience is a strong advantage; experience with Synapse/Data Factory/Databricks is valued.
• Depth of data modelling and semantic layers from multi-source estates.
• Ability to own and evolve a platform someone else built, including handover experience.
• Ability to explain technical systems in plain English to non-technical colleagues.
• Knowledge of UK GDPR in regulated environments is important.
• Experience directing delivery partners or vendors.

Responsibilities

• Own the Fabric platform end-to-end: ingestion pipelines, medallion layers, common data model, semantic models and releases.
• Bring the platform in-house by taking over code, knowledge and operations from the delivery partner.
• Connect and onboard new data sources and acquired firms onto the data model, ensuring reconciliation and trust.
• Ensure data quality, governance, and controls across client data.
• Help shape the data strategy with the Group CTO and own the platform roadmap.
• Enable users by providing clear documentation and accessible semantic models.

Skills

Data engineering

Data modelling

Platform ownership

Clear communication

UK GDPR knowledge

Tools

Microsoft Fabric

Power BI

Synapse

Data Factory

Databricks

Job description

| Full-time | Reports to Group CTO | Salary: competitive | Location: North / Hybrid

About Pivotal

Pivotal is on a mission to be UK's Trusted Adviser. Backed by Pollen Street Capital, we have built a family of specialist advice firms through an ambitious and continuing acquisition programme. Now we are building the technology that unites them: one AI-first tech stack - the Pulse Platform, with one data layer, and an AI-first client experience for one of the largest advice markets in the country.

We're a people-first business where colleagues excel, grow and feel genuinely valued. Our entrepreneurial partners lead award-winning teams delivering exceptional advice with speed, precision and care. We're obsessed with the client experience, naturally curious, and never stop striving for better.

About the role

Pivotal Insights is our data layer: a Microsoft Fabric platform bringing data from across the group - CRMs, finance, people and, in time, telephony, marketing and more - into one common data model and a single version of the truth.

It exists to power our data flywheel: more clients and cases generate more proprietary data on borrower needs, lender behaviour and outcomes; that data drives better advice and higher conversion; better advice wins better economics and more clients. The advantage compounds with every Pivotal firm that joins the group.

The data lead takes the Pivotal Insights pipelines, data model, operations and roadmap - and drives it through its next phases. This is a hands-on role: you will build as well as lead, and as the platform and the team around it grow, so will you.

What you'll do

• Own the Fabric platform end-to-end: ingestion pipelines, medallion layers, the common data model, semantic models and releases - built, run and improved by you.
• Bring the platform in-house: take over the code, knowledge and operations from our delivery partner, directing their remaining work while you do.
• Connect the group: onboard new data sources and each newly acquired Pivotal firm onto the common data model - every one integrated, reconciled and trusted.
• Make the data trustworthy: own data quality, reconciliation and governance - the standards and controls that let the group run on this platform, particularly anything touching client personal data.
• Help shape the data strategy with the Group CTO, and own the platform roadmap that delivers it.
• Enable the people who build on it: clear documentation, well-designed semantic models and the right access for the insight, finance and Pivotal firm teams who consume the platform.

How success is measured

• Pivotal Insights is the single source of truth - group reporting runs on the platform.
• The platform's output feeds our data flywheel - trusted, pooled data flowing into the models and insights that make every client interaction better.
• New data sources land on schedule - every new Pivotal firm, system and domain integrated, reconciled and trusted.

How this role fits in

You sit at the centre of Pivotal's Insights pod. A Commercial Insights Lead turns the platform's data into insight products for the group; a Data Engineer builds alongside you; finance and Pivotal firm teams own their own reporting. You own everything between a raw source and a trusted, queryable model - and as the pod grows, this role grows with it.

What you'll need

• Production data engineering on the Microsoft data stack (SQL, Python, pipeline orchestration). We build on Microsoft Fabric with Power BI - hands‑on Fabric experience is a strong advantage, but we care more that you have delivered on Synapse, Data Factory, Databricks or similar and can pick Fabric up fast.
• Data modelling depth: dimensional models and semantic layers built from messy, multi-source estates.
• You have taken ownership of a platform someone else built - an inherited estate or a vendor handover - and made it your own.
• The ability to explain technical systems in plain English to non-technical colleagues.
• Mortgage or financial services domain knowledge
• Working knowledge of UK GDPR in a regulated environment
• Experience directing delivery partners or vendors