Microsoft Fabric Architect: Enterprise Analytics Leader

Carrington Blake Recruitment; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Southwark Council is seeking a Microsoft Fabric Architect to provide strategic and technical leadership for the council’s enterprise data and analytics platform. The role will review, validate and enhance the Fabric architecture, governance framework and operating model.

Working with the Data and Platforms Team, you will ensure the platform remains scalable, secure, cost-effective and aligned with Microsoft best practices and the council's digital ambitions.

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing, reviewing and implementing enterprise-scale Microsoft Fabric solutions.
• Strong knowledge of OneLake, Lakehouse, Warehouse, notebooks, data pipelines, dataflows, semantic models and Power BI.
• Experience defining enterprise data architectures, Medallion patterns, reusable data products and governance frameworks.
• Strong understanding of security, identities, access management, data protection and compliance controls in Microsoft cloud environments.
• Experience of Azure data platform services, Azure resource groups, subscriptions, RBAC, tagging, monitoring and integration patterns.
• Experience producing architecture documentation, standards, operating models and delivery roadmaps.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication and technical leadership skills, including the ability to explain complex issues clearly to non-technical audiences.
• Experience providing design assurance, mentoring and knowledge transfer to multidisciplinary teams.
• Microsoft Purview implementation and data governance.
• Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Factory and migration from legacy data platforms.
• Fabric capacity management, FinOps, workload optimisation and organisational chargeback models.
• AI, Copilot, machine learning or advanced analytics within a governed enterprise environment.
• Power Platform and Dataverse integration patterns.
• Working with sensitive personal data and formal information governance processes.

Responsibilities

• Lead the review, optimisation and technical assurance of the council’s Microsoft Fabric architecture, including new solutions, significant changes and alignment with Microsoft and enterprise architecture best practice.
• Define architectural guardrails for appropriate self-service analytics and service-led development, while avoiding duplication, uncontrolled platform growth or weakening of enterprise governance.
• Advise on where Microsoft Fabric should be used, including enterprise reporting, recurring reporting, cross-service analysis and data matching, and where operational requirements are better met through line-of-business systems.
• Review security boundaries, workspace permissions, sensitivity controls, sharing arrangements, access models, user accounts, service accounts, service principals, managed identities, workspace identity, Key Vault and governed connections.
• Ensure architecture and governance approaches support UK GDPR, information governance, data minimisation, DPIA and data-sharing requirements, and wider public sector obligations.
• Review and enhance integration with Microsoft Purview, including data catalogue, metadata, lineage, data ownership, classification and discoverability.
• Review capacity utilisation, performance and consumption patterns, and recommend approaches for capacity monitoring, workload protection, cost optimisation, showback and chargeback.
• Support the council’s approach to Fabric domains, workspaces, data products, semantic model ownership and business accountability.
• Define appropriate Dev, Test and Production practices, including source control, deployment pipelines, release management, testing, documentation and operational handover.
• Provide architectural input for AI, Copilot and advanced analytics use cases that depend on governed and trusted council data.
• Produce clear architecture diagrams, decision records, standards, roadmaps, options papers and recommendations for technical and senior stakeholder audiences.
• Work effectively with technical teams, data owners, information governance, cyber security, service leads, suppliers and Microsoft to resolve issues and agree sustainable solutions.
• Provide mentoring, design assurance and knowledge transfer to data engineers, analysts, developers and platform administrators within the Data and Platforms Team.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Microsoft Fabric

OneLake and Lakehouse

Power BI

Azure services

Security and RBAC

Stakeholder management

Mentoring

Job description

Southwark Council is seeking a Microsoft Fabric Architect to provide strategic and technical leadership for the council’s enterprise data and analytics platform. The role will review, validate and enhance the Fabric architecture, governance framework and operating model.

Working with the Data and Platforms Team, you will ensure the platform remains scalable, secure, cost-effective and aligned with Microsoft best practices and the council's digital ambitions.