Principal Data Architect - Commercial Effectiveness

Haleon; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Haleon is seeking a Principal Data Architect for the Commercial Effectiveness Value Pool to shape long-term data architecture strategy and ensure scalable analytics, AI, and digital use cases.

You will mentor architects, partner with engineering, security, and platform teams, and translate business strategy into roadmaps while balancing innovation with governance.

Qualifications

• Extensive senior data architecture experience in a large organisation.
• Proven ability to define and govern enterprise-scale data architectures.
• Hands-on experience with cloud data platforms, Azure preferred.

Responsibilities

• Act as a senior technical authority for data architecture.
• Define and govern data architecture principles, standards, reference architectures, and design patterns.
• Translate business strategy into coherent data architecture roadmaps and target-state designs.
• Offer guidance to Value Pool leaders, product managers/owners and delivery teams.
• Define, optimise, and govern the specialised technology landscape for the Value Pools Data Foundations.
• Create and deliver data architecture patterns and frameworks aligned to growth.
• Balance standardisation, customisation, innovation, costs and risks in new data tech.

Skills

Senior data architect

Enterprise-scale architecture

Azure data platforms

Stakeholder management

Data governance

Tools

Databricks

Azure Synapse

Event Hubs

AKS

Airflow

Job description

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity. Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science. Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

About the role

The Principal Data Architect – Commercial Effectiveness will provide strategic and technical leadership for the organisation’s data architecture, ensuring data platforms, models, and integration patterns enable scalable analytics, AI, and digital use cases for the Commercial Effectiveness Value Pool. Acting as the senior architectural authority for data, this role shapes long‑term data architecture strategy while remaining closely engaged with delivery teams to ensure designs are practical, consistent, and fit for purpose. You govern enterprise‑wide data architecture principles, standards, and reference architectures, working closely with engineering, security, and platform teams to ensure Commercial Effectiveness solutions are secure, resilient, and aligned with the broader technology landscape. A key aspect of the role is influencing senior stakeholders and leaders of the Value Pool, translating business strategy into coherent data architecture roadmaps and guiding complex architectural decisions and trade‑offs. The Principal Data Architect plays a critical role in enabling data as a strategic asset, balancing innovation with architectural discipline. You will mentor architects and senior engineers, drive architectural assurance across major initiatives, and ensure data architecture evolves in a way that supports commercial value, regulatory compliance, and long‑term sustainability with the Value Pool. The role sits within the Data Architecture and Engineering team in the Data and AI Office.

Key responsibilities

• Act as a senior technical authority for data architecture, defining the long‑term enterprise data architecture strategy that supports analytics, AI, and digital initiatives for the Value Pool.
• Define, maintain, and govern data architecture principles, standards, reference architectures, and design patterns across the organisation with other Principal Data Architects.
• Define and execute the Commercial Effectiveness Data Foundation Strategy, aligned to business priorities and architectural vision.
• Translate business strategy and specific Value Pool priorities into coherent data architecture roadmaps and target‑state designs.
• Offers guidance to Value Pool leaders, product managers/owners and delivery teams through transformation and optimisation initiatives.
• Define, optimise, and govern the specialised technology landscape for the Value Pools Data Foundations.
• Through collaboration and consultation, create and deliver data architecture patterns and frameworks consistent with the business aspirations for growth and expansion.
• New data technology evaluation and articulation for the transition from current to future state, balancing standardisation, customisation, innovation, costs and risks; whilst staying abreast of disruptive technology trends that can impact or benefit the business.
• Ensuring new technologies and innovations are integrated into Haleon, advising and recommending data architecture strategies, decisions, processes, tools, standards, and methodologies aligned to principles.
• Provide Value Pool thought leadership in data management, analytics, data science, AI, GenAI, etc. using technical competency to support and drive business value and results.
• Providing or supporting solution design to reuse or identify new patterns and ensure the solutions are aligned to principles, secure, performant, and scalable for a growing organisation.
• Supporting technology decisions from a position of informed technical authority.
• Evaluating existing solutions for exposure or weaknesses that could compromise performance, security or efficiency.
• Provide architectural leadership and assurance across major programmes and initiatives within the Value Pool, guiding complex design decisions and trade‑offs.
• Partner closely with data engineering, platform, security, and application teams to ensure architectures are practical, scalable, secure, and fit for purpose.
• Ensure consistent adoption of data modelling standards, integration patterns, and platform architectures across domains.
• Lead the architectural approach to enterprise data platforms, including cloud data foundations, analytics platforms, streaming, and integration capabilities.
• Influence senior business and technology stakeholders, clearly articulating architectural options, risks, and impacts.
• Balance innovation with architectural discipline, enabling new data technologies and patterns to be adopted safely and sustainably.
• Embed data governance, quality, security, privacy, and regulatory requirements into Value Pool architecture by design.
• Mentor and coach data architects and senior engineers, raising architectural capability and consistency across teams.
• Contribute to technology evaluation and investment decisions, shaping tooling standards and platform evolution.
• Support delivery teams throughout the lifecycle, from early concept and solution design through to industrialisation.

Qualifications and skills

Essential

• Extensive experience in a senior data architecture role (Principal, Lead, or Enterprise Data Architect) within a large, complex organisation.
• Have proven experience of building data architectures for the Commercial Effectiveness Value Pool and the associated data domains.
• Proven ability to define, govern, and evolve enterprise‑scale data architectures supporting analytics, AI, and digital use cases.
• Deep expertise in data architecture principles, including data modelling, integration patterns, metadata, and information lifecycle management.
• Strong hands‑on experience with cloud‑based data platforms (Azure preferred or equivalent), including data lakes, data warehousing, and analytics platforms.
• Demonstrated experience establishing and enforcing architecture standards, reference architectures, and design patterns across multiple teams or domains.
• Proven track record of providing architectural leadership and assurance across complex, high‑impact initiatives.
• Strong understanding of data governance, quality, security, privacy, and regulatory requirements, and how to embed these into architectural designs.
• Ability to translate business strategy and Value Pool priorities into coherent target‑state architectures and roadmaps.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, including the ability to articulate architectural trade‑offs, risks, and recommendations to senior leaders.
• Experience mentoring and coaching other architects and senior engineers, raising architectural maturity and consistency across the organisation.

Preferred

• Experience working within large‑scale data and AI transformation programmes.
• Strong familiarity with Azure‑native data technologies (e.g. Databricks, Synapse, Event Hubs, AKS, Airflow).
• Experience with streaming and real‑time data architectures and event‑driven integration patterns.
• Exposure to domain oriented or federated data architectures (e.g. data mesh‑influenced models).
• Experience contributing to or shaping enterprise technology and investment roadmaps.
• Background working closely with cloud platform, security, and DevOps teams on end‑to‑end solution design.

Job Posting End Date 2026-11-14

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong. During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence.

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity. Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science. Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.