Data Platform Manager

NRF United Kingdom; Newcastle upon Tyne; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Norton Rose Fulbright, a leading global law firm, seeks a Data Platform Owner to manage the foundational data platform that underpins data products across the EMEA region. You will deliver hands-on leadership, drive the platform roadmap and ensure secure access to diverse data sources to support strategic decisions.

The role includes governance, collaboration with Risk and Security, and leading a team in implementing analytics, AI, and ML capabilities within a controlled environment.

Qualifications

• Experience owning end-to-end data platform across design, delivery and steady-state operation.
• Strong understanding of Databricks and Fabric architecture.
• Experience with ingestion, transformation and reporting layers across enterprise data flows.
• Knowledge of governance, data quality and cross-border data controls.
• Experience with DevOps practices including CI/CD and controlled releases.

Responsibilities

• Hands-on managing the data platform and participating in service delivery.
• Own end-to-end data-platform roadmap, aligning analytics and data-science capabilities with firm, practice-group and client priorities.
• Architect and govern the platform lifecycle: ingestion, storage, analytics and ML layers.
• Enable data-science and analytics use cases including predictive models and GenAI within a governed environment.
• Ensure platform supports secure access to structured and unstructured data.
• Define and enforce data governance, quality and compliance with Risk, Privacy and Info-Security teams.
• Act as primary business and leadership contact for the data platform and translate needs into data capabilities.
• Oversee platform operability, scalability and cost management with engineering teams.
• Lead vendor management and capability development for scalable data-science adoption.

Skills

Data platform ownership

Databricks architecture

Fabric architecture

Data pipelines

RBAC & Azure AD

Security governance

CI/CD

Data governance

Power BI integration

Cost management

L1–L4 support

Tools

Databricks

Delta Lake

Power BI

Azure AD

Job description

Practice Group / Department: EMEA IT Applications

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global law firm with more than 3,000 lawyers advising clients across the United States, Europe, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East. We provide a full scope of legal services to the world’s preeminent corporations and financial institutions.

Role

The Data Platform Owner will manage the foundational data platform that supports the data products the firm builds to enable strategic decision making across the EMEA region. The role involves hands‑on delivery, operational support, and leadership of a team that executes the firm’s strategy for using data to drive business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Hands‑on managing the data platform and participating in service delivery as required.
• Own the end‑to‑end data‑platform roadmap, aligning analytics and data‑science capabilities with firm, practice‑group and client priorities.
• Accountable for the architecture and lifecycle of the platform, covering ingestion, storage, analytics and machine‑learning layers.
• Enable data‑science and advanced analytics use cases including predictive models, experimentation, AI and GenAI within a governed environment.
• Ensure the platform supports secure access to structured and unstructured data, including client, matter, financial and document metadata.
• Define and enforce data governance, quality and compliance, working closely with Risk, Privacy and Information‑Security teams.
• Act as the primary business and leadership contact for the data platform, translating legal and operational needs into data capabilities or products.
• Oversee platform operability, scalability and cost management, working with engineering and infrastructure teams.
• Lead vendor management and capability development, ensuring tools, skills and standards support responsible and scalable data‑science adoption.

Key Skills and Experience

• Own end‑to‑end EMEAPAC data platform across design, delivery and steady‑state operation.
• Strong understanding of Databricks and Fabric architecture, including Lakehouse patterns.
• Oversee ingestion, transformation and reporting layers across enterprise data flows.
• Working knowledge of Databricks (Delta Lake, pipelines, orchestration) and Fabric (Power BI, semantic models).
• Experience operating governance over data quality, lineage, access and cross‑border data controls.
• Operate within structured service wrap, including L1–L4 support and formal service acceptance.
• Monitor platform performance, reliability and adoption in live operation.
• Strong understanding of security, RBAC and integration with Azure AD and enterprise controls.
• Awareness of cost, performance and scalability trade‑offs across compute and storage.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices including CI/CD, environment management and controlled releases.

Equal Opportunity

We are proud to be an equal‑opportunities employer and encourage applications from individuals who can complement our existing teams. We strive to create an inclusive and accessible recruitment process for all candidates. If you require any tailored adjustments or accommodations, please let us know.