Location
Primarily remote with flexibility to travel to client sites and our offices in London, Sheffield, and Bristol.

Hours
Full Time

Salary
Competitive salary based on experience

About the Role
Methods Analytics (MA) is seeking a skilled Data Architect to join our team on a permanent basis. In this role, you will advocate the business benefits of data standards, championing and governing these standards across projects and the organisation. You will demonstrate a broad perspective on business issues, establishing patterns, policies, roadmaps, and vision statements. You will make and guide effective decisions, clearly explaining how they have been reached and resolving technical disputes of varying complexity and risk.

You will communicate complex technical information effectively across organisational, technical, and political boundaries, making it accessible to non-technical audiences. Your responsibilities include designing how to expose data from systems (APIs, real-time streams), linking data from multiple systems, and delivering modern data services. You will ensure deployment risks are understood and documented, design end-to-end data solutions from requirements through implementation, including technical documentation and architecture blueprints.

Leading complex data migration projects from legacy systems to modern cloud-native platforms will be a key part of your role. You will evaluate and recommend appropriate technologies across the modern data stack to meet client needs, mentor junior team members, and collaborate closely with data engineers, software engineers, data scientists, and business stakeholders.

Your impact will enable transformative business decisions through robust, scalable data architectures, drive adoption of modern data platforms and AI-enabled analytics solutions, establish technical standards and architectural patterns ensuring quality, security, and maintainability, and help cultivate a data-driven culture within client organisations and internally. You will deliver architectures that seamlessly integrate traditional and modern data systems.

Experience
- Deep knowledge of the Azure data stack including Azure SQL Server, CosmosDB, Azure Data Factory, Purview, Synapse, Event Hub, Azure Databricks/Fabric
- Extensive data modelling experience with both normalized relational models and de-normalized Star Schema/dimensional models
- Excellent relational database design skills with expertise in diagnosing and optimizing performance across SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and cloud databases
- Proven track record with complex data migration projects involving terabyte+ datasets, multiple legacy source systems, and structured/unstructured data
- Proficiency with Parquet/Delta Lake or other modern data storage formats
- Experience with streaming architectures using Kafka, Event Hubs, or Kinesis for real-time data processing
- Knowledge of data architectures supporting AI/ML workloads, including vector databases, feature stores, and MLOps pipelines
- Experience processing and managing unstructured data types such as text, images, logs, and sensor data
- Understanding of Lambda and Kappa architectural patterns and their appropriate application

You May Also Have
- Exposure to high-performing, low latency, or large volume data systems
- Knowledge of Government Digital Service practices across Discovery/Alpha/Beta/Live phases
- Understanding of vector databases and similarity search for AI applications
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code and modern DevOps practices
- Knowledge of designing and analyzing operational logs for data processing and incident triage
- Awareness of advances in AI technologies, data services, and architectural practices
- Industry specialisation in sectors such as Engineering, Manufacturing, Healthcare
- Public sector or defence experience
- Experience with modern unified data platforms like Databricks or Microsoft Fabric
- Understanding of data mesh or data fabric architectural approaches
- Relevant industry certifications such as TOGAF 9, CDMP, or Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)

Security Clearance
UKSV clearance is required, with Security Check (SC) as the minimum standard, either already held or willingness to undergo the process. Some roles may require Developed Vetting (DV) clearance; while not mandatory, willingness to obtain DV clearance is beneficial. Candidates will complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) as part of onboarding. Inability to meet these criteria may delay or prevent employment; details will be discussed at interview.