Semantic Data Modeller, Associate Director

Fitch Group; Greater London; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

High-visibility project

Global collaboration

Access to senior stakeholders

Exposure to diverse data platforms

Job summary

Fitch Group's Chief Data Office seeks an Associate Director to join the Enterprise Data & Analytics team in London. You will lead semantic layer strategy, ontology development, and AI-ready data products, collaborating with data governance and business stakeholders to scale capabilities across the organisation.

With 4–6 years of relevant experience in metadata, ontologies or semantic layers, you will shape standards, drive governance, and translate business needs into governed models while

Qualifications

• A degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline (or equivalent practical experience), plus substantial delivery experience (typically 4–6 years).
• Hands-on experience with metadata management, ontologies, or semantic layers.

Responsibilities

• Support the build-out of Fitch's semantic layer and ontology capability, taking it from initial high-value use case to organisation-wide practice.
• Design and maintain core and domain ontologies with business SMEs and data product owners.
• Partner with data product owners to align data products with AI-ready data principles.
• Embed semantic mapping into the data product registration process with Data Governance.

Skills

Metadata management

Ontologies

Semantic layers

Stakeholder engagement

Data governance

Education

Degree in Computer Science / Data Science / Mathematics

Tools

Data catalog tools

Git

Job description

The Chief Data Office (CDO) is seeking an Associate Director to join the Enterprise Data & Analytics team in our London office.

Location: London, GB

The Enterprise Data & Analytics team reports to the Chief Data Officer and supports decision-making across Fitch Group through insights, analytics, and data-driven solutions. The team operates globally, with colleagues in London and New York, and builds capabilities that help business units drive revenue growth, product innovation, productivity gains, and stronger business performance.

Within this global function, you will support the build-out of Fitch's semantic layer capability: the shared ontologies, data product semantics, and modelling standards that let structured and unstructured data across the business mean the same thing wherever it's consumed - by people, dashboards, or AI agents. You will work closely with data product owners, data governance, and the wider knowledge modelling community to take the semantic layer strategy from foundational use case into a repeatable, scaling practice.

What We Offer:

• Significant ownership of a strategically important, highly visible capability from its foundational phase, with direct access to senior stakeholders across Ratings, Solutions, and the CDO.
• The opportunity to shape how Fitch Group defines, governs, and scales semantic modelling and ontology practice across the business.
• A collaborative environment with access to experienced colleagues across a global function.
• Exposure to a broad range of stakeholders, data platforms, and business domains.

What you’ll work on (indicative, not exhaustive):

• Semantic Layer Strategy & Delivery - Support the build-out of Fitch's semantic layer and ontology capability, taking it from an initial high-value use case towards a repeatable, organisation-wide practice.
• Ontology Development - Design and maintain core and domain ontologies in partnership with business SMEs and data product owners, ensuring domain concepts are captured consistently.
• AI-Ready Data Products - Partner with data product owners across the business to bring their data products in line with AI-ready data principles.
• Governance & Registration - Work with Data Governance to embed semantic mapping into the data product registration process.
• Standards & Tooling - Define and evolve the modelling standards, formats, and tooling that make semantics portable across platforms, reducing duplication of effort across teams.
• Stakeholder Engagement - Act as a trusted advisor to senior leads across Ratings, Solutions, and Group functions, translating business terminology and tribal knowledge into governed semantic models.
• Evaluation & Benchmarking - Define success criteria for semantic layer adoption - coverage, data quality, and downstream impact on AI use cases - to support decisions on where to invest next.

What You Need to Have:

• A degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related discipline (or equivalent practical experience), plus substantial evidence of delivery in real-world settings (typically 4-6 years of relevant experience).
• Hands-on experience with metadata management, ontologies, or semantic layers.
• A track record of working directly with senior business stakeholders to translate ambiguous, tribal knowledge into structured, governed models.
• Strong judgement about what “good” looks like in a data or knowledge model.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to operate credibly across technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work independently: managing competing priorities, and make pragmatic trade-offs to deliver value with minimal supervision.

What Would Make You Stand Out:

• Direct experience building or scaling an enterprise ontology, knowledge graph, or semantic layer programme.
• Familiarity with enterprise data catalogue tools and how they interact with a semantic layer.
• Exposure to conversational AI, LLM-powered tools, or agent-based workflows, and how semantics improve their reliability.
• Familiarity with version control (Git) and treating ontologies/models “like code”.

Why Fitch?

At Fitch Group, the combined power of our global perspectives is what differentiates us. Our global network of colleagues comes together to accomplish things greater than they ever could alone.

Every team member is essential to our business and each perspective is critical to our success. We embrace a diverse culture that encourages a free exchange of ideas, guaranteeing your voice will be heard and your work will have an impact, regardless of seniority.

We are building incredible things at Fitch and we invite you to join us on our journey.

Fitch Group is a global leader in financial information services with operations in more than 30 countries. Wholly owned by the Hearst Corporation, we are comprised of three main businesses: Fitch Ratings | Fitch Solutions | Fitch Learning.

For more information please visit our websites:

Fitch is committed to providing global securities markets with objective, timely, independent and forward-looking credit opinions. To protect Fitch’s credibility and reputation, our employees must take every precaution to avoid conflicts of interests or any appearance of a conflict of interest. Should you be successful in the recruitment process at Fitch Ratings you will be asked to declare any securities holdings and other potential conflicts prior to commencing employment. If you, or your immediate family, have any holdings that may conflict with your work responsibilities, you may be asked to divest yourself of them before beginning work.

Fitch Group is proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Aff... we evaluate qualified applicants without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, protected veteran status, and other statuses protected by law.