Data Architecture Lead - GPA - G7

The Government Property Agency is the largest property holder in government, with more than £2.1 billion in property assets and over 55% of the government’s office estate. 

We are transforming the way the Civil Service works by creating great places to work, leading the largest commercial office programme in the UK, working towards halving carbon emissions from government offices, and achieving greater value for taxpayers. And we are looking for innovative, solutions-focused people to join our team. 

Representing the best covenant in the UK – His Majesty’s Government – we are leading transformational programmes such as the Government Hubs Programme, Whitehall Campus Programme and Net Zero Programme, as well as delivering modern, cost-effective real estate service solutions.  

Innovation and progress are at the heart of our behaviours. We foster a culture of lifelong learning, where curiosity and self-improvement are encouraged. And we’re dedicated to becoming a leading, inclusive employer both in the external market and throughout the Civil Service. Our strong emphasis on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) is not just about driving inclusion across our organisation, it is also about ensuring our services meet the needs of government departments and the civil servants who use our spaces.  

Join our dynamic and diverse team that leads with purpose, improving sustainability, nurturing social value, driving inclusivity and flexibility, and kickstarting economic growth. We are driven by purpose, and you can be part of it too: where you make a meaningful impact; where you influence; where your voice really matters; where you help to shape our future direction.

The GPA is committed to representing the communities we serve by making Diversity, Equality and Inclusion part of everything we do.

To ensure that we are always recruiting and retaining a diverse mix of talent, we are particularly inviting applications from candidates who are disabled, ethnically or gender diverse, and people who identify as being part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Job description

Effective data architecture is an essential component of GPA’s overall Enterprise Architecture and the maturity of GPA’s data. This role significantly contributes to realising our ambitions for driving efficiencies in property management by helping us fully understand our data estate. This includes creating data models so business owners can better understand data flows, data entities and opportunities to develop end to end processes.

Key Responsibilities

The data architect lead will be responsible for designing and managing GPA’s enterprise data models to support design and deployment of our business systems:

• Design data models and metadata systems.
• Help chief data architects to interpret an organisation’s needs.
• Provide oversight and advice to other data architects who are designing and producing data artefacts.
• Design and support the management of data dictionaries.
• Make sure that your team are working to the standards set for the organisation by the chief data architects.
• Work with technical architects to make sure that an organisation’s systems are designed in accordance with the appropriate data architecture.
• Line manage a small team of data architects and business analysts.

Person specification

As a data driven organisation, a lead data architect is essential to assure data is designed to maximise interoperability between our various systems that create and consume data within GPA. The data architecture lead ensures that the GPA has fully documented data models and data specifications for the use and exchange of data across and to/from the GPA estate.  

To achieve this, the data architecture lead is able to:

• Turn complex data into clear and well understood solutions, which can be acted upon.
• Work with SMEs such as Business Analysts, Enterprise Architects and Solution Architects to arrive at data architectural solutions.
• Adopt a methodical and systematic approach to document control.
• Understand interactions between business analysts and data architects in supporting system design and development.
• Supervising a team of technical data professionals in a matrix environment.

Experience & Technical Skills

Essential criteria:

• Stakeholder management and consensus building.
• Working in an Agile development environment.
• Managing a team of data architects and business analysts.
• Expert understanding of how data architecture contributes to successful system design and operation.
• Development and management of conceptual and logical data models.
• Use and application of formal data modelling patterns such as UML.
• Understand interactions between business analysts and data architects in supporting system design and development.
• Familiarity with using CASE tools such as SparxEA, Erwin or similar.

Desirable criteria:

• Understanding of data privacy and data security concepts and how they are factored into data architectural practices.
• Work prioritisation and scheduling to time and budget.
• People training & development.
• Using Agile development environments such as JIRA.

Qualifications and Accreditations

Essential criteria:

• Graduate level qualification in computer science, system engineering or similar.

Desirable criteria:

• Training on system design practices such as TOGAF and RM-ODP.
• Gold Standard: IT & Data Management – CITP / CsyP.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Working Together
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Customer Perspective
• Commercial Acumen
• Property Market Knowledge
• Innovation