Senior Data Architect

Senior Data Architect 2-Year Fixed Term Contract £80,000 - £100,000+ DOE Hybrid Working | Edinburgh, Stirling, Bath or London (2-3 days per week) Shape the Future of Data, Analytics & AI in Financial Services We're supporting a major UK financial services organisation with the appointment of a Senior Data Architect to play a pivotal role in transforming how data is leveraged across the business.

This is an opportunity for a technically strong architect who can hit the ground running from day one, providing architectural leadership across enterprise data platforms, analytics initiatives, machine learning capabilities and emerging AI solutions.

You'll be responsible for defining and governing data architecture standards, designing scalable data solutions, and ensuring trusted, high-quality data is available to support business decision-making, regulatory obligations and innovation programmes. What You'll Be Doing

Defining and evolving enterprise, domain and solution-level data architecture

Designing logical and physical data models for operational, analytical and AI use cases

Establishing architecture standards, patterns, principles and governance frameworks

Providing technical leadership and architectural assurance across delivery teams

Collaborating with stakeholders across technology, data, analytics, security and business functions

Driving best practice in data governance, lineage, metadata management and data quality

Supporting strategic data initiatives, investment planning and architectural roadmaps

Ensuring solutions meet regulatory, security, resilience and performance requirements

Mentoring teams and promoting strong architectural practices across the organisation

What We're Looking For We're seeking an architect with a strong technical background who is comfortable influencing senior stakeholders while remaining hands-on in architecture design and decision making.

You'll ideally bring

3+ years' experience operating in a Senior Data Architect capacity

Strong expertise in data architecture, data modelling and information management

Experience designing modern data platforms supporting analytics, reporting and machine learning workloads

Knowledge of data governance, lineage, metadata management and data quality frameworks

Experience defining technical standards, patterns and architectural principles

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills

The ability to provide architectural leadership from day one

Industry Experience Financial services experience is highly desirable, although candidates from other regulated industries such as insurance, pensions, utilities or healthcare will also be considered.

Particular interest will be given to candidates with experience across

Retirement savings and retirement income products

Wealth, investments or asset management

Regulatory data environments

Finance analytics and data value chain transformation initiatives

Exposure to AI, Machine Learning and emerging Agentic AI solutions within enterprise environments would be highly advantageous. Why Apply?

Strategic architecture role with significant visibility and influence

Opportunity to shape data strategy, analytics and AI capability

Long-term transformation programme within a highly respected financial services organisation

Flexible hybrid working from Edinburgh, Stirling, Bath or London

Competitive package with flexibility for exceptional candidates

If you're a technically focused Data Architect looking to drive meaningful change across data, analytics and AI within a complex regulated environment, we'd love to hear from you.