Senior Information Architect-London

University of Alabama Libraries; Greater London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Northern Trust is seeking a Senior Information Architect to shape the firm’s data strategy, modelling standards, and AI-enabled capabilities across cloud platforms such as Snowflake and Databricks.

You will provide design authority across conceptual, logical, and physical data models, collaborating with engineering and domain teams to deliver scalable, compliant data products and semantic layers that support enterprise AI initiatives.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in data architecture, data engineering, or information management.
• Strong modelling across conceptual, logical and physical levels.
• Hands-on with modern tooling (Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, SQL) and AI-enabled data products.

Responsibilities

• Lead and govern enterprise data models across source, integration, and consumption layers.
• Define archival and lineage standards; steward data entities and metadata.
• Collaborate with engineering and domain teams to translate business needs into data structures.
• Guide semantic models and ontologies for AI-enabled data products.
• Present decisions to senior stakeholders and ensure regulatory alignment.

Skills

Data architecture

Data modelling

Semantic modelling

Python

SQL

AI data products

GitHub Copilot

Knowledge graphs

Ontologies design

Snowflake

Databricks

dbt Labs

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Information Systems

Tools

SqlDBM

Snowflake

Databricks

Cortex AI

Genie

GitHub Copilot

OWL / RDF tooling

Job description

About Northern Trust

As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world's most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.

Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.

With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Senior Information Architect

The Senior Information Architect sits within Northern Trust's Information Architecture team, shaping the firm's enterprise data strategy, data modelling standards, and AI-enabled capabilities.

The role will provide design authority and governance across conceptual, logical, and physical data models, operating across the firm's cloud data platforms and contributing to AI-driven data products.

Data Modelling & Architecture

• Lead and contribute with conceptual, logical, and physical data model design aligned to the firm's data mesh and medallion architectures
• Govern and maintain the enterprise data model library in SqlDBM, enforcing naming conventions, domain standards, and versioning
• Define and steward canonical data entities and lineage across source, integration, and consumption layers
• Help with the translation of business requirements into rigorous data structures in collaboration with engineering and domain teams
• Guide teams on the design and effective use of semantic data models, including their application to agentic AI solutions

Semantic & Knowledge Modelling

• Integrate semantic layers with business glossaries, data catalogues, and lineage tooling
• Design and maintain semantic models to support agentic-AI capabilities
• Help develop ontologies, taxonomies, and controlled vocabularies underpinning enterprise metadata and search
• Define semantic modelling standards and patterns to ensure consistent meaning, interoperability, and AI readiness across data products
• Guide and control the creation of data domains that align with the banks underlying capabilities

Data Engineering & Platforms

• Design data product schemas across Snowflake and Databricks, including Delta Lake structures and access patterns
• Define and enforce architectural guardrails for data product design, including performance, scalability, security, and cost efficiency
• Set design standards and review transformation/pipelines for compliance
• Embed data contract standards and data quality frameworks across pipeline outputs

Agentic AI & AI-Assisted Development

• Leverage Snowflake Cortex / Databricks Genie (or similar) to help engineering teams deliver natural language query and LLM-augmented data products
• Utilize GitHub Copilot (or similar) to accelerate modelling, documentation, and pipeline development
• Design and define a set of agentic skills that can be provided to implementation teams
• Contribute to the firm's AI Champion network, evaluating emerging capabilities and advising on adoption

Enterprise Architecture & Design Assurance

• Act as a design authority for data architecture across teams and data domains
• Partner with enterprise, security, and risk architecture to ensure data solutions align with broader technology and regulatory standards
• Provide early-stage architectural input to initiative discovery and solution design to reduce delivery risk

Governance & Stakeholder Engagement

• Present architecture decisions to senior stakeholders, architecture review boards, and regulatory audiences
• Support regulatory compliance through robust lineage, metadata management, and data quality evidence
• Mentor junior architects and engineers within the Information Architecture community of practice

The ideal candidate should have a fair amount of the following skills and experience:

• Proven experience in data architecture, data engineering, or information management
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or a related discipline
• Proven enterprise data modelling experience at conceptual, logical, and physical levels
• Hands‑on SqlDBM experience (or equivalent modern toolset)
• Proven experience with dbt Labs
• Good Python skills, API integration, automation
• Practical Snowflake and Databricks experience including Cortex AI and Genie
• Working knowledge of OWL, RDF, SPARQL and enterprise ontology design
• Experience with at least one agentic AI framework
• GitHub Copilot or equivalent AI coding assistant experience in a professional setting
• Financial services background preferred; BCBS 239 awareness advantageous

Desirable skills include:

• Data Vault 2.1 alongside Kimball/Star‑schema modelling
• Data mesh, data product ownership and federated governance
• Knowledge graph platforms (Neo4j, Neptune) or knowledge of OWL, RDF and exposure to and build of ontologies
• Published thought leadership or community contributions in data or AI

Work Authorization

Applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom at the time of application and for the duration of employment.

Please note that Northern Trust is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role. This includes Skilled Worker visas, Global Business Mobility routes, Graduate visas, Youth Mobility Scheme, High Potential Individual visas, Scale‑up Worker visas, Temporary Worker visas, and other employer‑sponsored visa categories.

Working with Us

As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.

Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust's history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.

Reasonable Accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at [e-mail] , or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.