Data Architect - NCA - SEO

Location

Belfast; Birmingham; Bristol; Calder (Normanton); Leicester; London*; Warrington

* For roles based in London, your contractual place of work will be Stratford. While the Stratford site is expected to become operational from November 2025 – March 2026, you will be required to carry out your contractual duties from Vauxhall or another reasonable location on a temporary basis during the interim period. Please note that, as Stratford will be your contractual place of work, any subsequent move from a temporary location will not entitle you to payments for travel time or costs under the Relocation and Excess Travel Policy.

About the job

Job summary

We are currently looking to recruit a Data Architect to play a role in shaping the Agency’s transformation roadmap and driving forward its data strategy. Working at the heart of mission-critical programmes, this role will ensure that the NCA’s data platforms and services are scalable, secure and designed to meet the complex needs of a multi-tier operational environment. You will support the evolution of our data architecture to support intelligence-led operations, national-level coordination and cross-government collaboration, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture and HMG standards. 

This role aligns to Data Architect within the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework.

If you would like to find out more about this role and the application process we will be holding a virtual opening evening via MS Teams on Wednesday 17th September 2025 at 6.00pm.

This event is by invitation only.

To register, please click on the following link DDaT VIRTUAL EVENT.

You will be asked for your name and email address. Please ensure that you spell your email address correctly.

Registration will close on Tuesday 16th September at 12:00pm. You will not be able to register after this date and time.

Please see our Privacy Policy for details on how your data is handled.

Job description

The Digital Data and Technology (DDaT) Directorate is responsible for creating a cutting-edge technology and information environment that connects, empowers and enhances our Officers’ crime fighting capabilities.

We are responsible for defining and delivering our data and technology strategy, policy and architecture, building and sustaining resilient services which are critical to our mission success. We work closely with our operational teams to help them do their job in the most effective and efficient way, understanding their challenges and combining this with emerging technologies/techniques to obtain and exploit data in innovative ways to ensure we stay ahead of the criminals who are committing some of most serious crimes and inflicting harm to our society.

Are you ready to join the team?

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Provide specialist technical and data support to the Chief Architect, the architecture team and wider NCA stakeholders, taking a lead role on all matters relating to data technologies, including ETL, data integration, enrichment and modelling. 
• Provide architectural leadership across the agency’s data landscape, including ownership and ongoing refinement of the corporate data model. 
• Define and maintain enterprise-wide data standards, design patterns and best practices, ensuring alignment with the enterprise architecture strategy, HMG policies and recognised industry frameworks. 
• Create and maintain a strategic roadmap for the Agency’s data architecture and supporting technologies, ensuring alignment with overall transformation goals and long-term business objectives. 
• Lead or assure the design of the data elements of systems and solutions, including database structures, file systems, schemas, metadata models and data flows. 
• Establish and promote standards for data quality, integrity and lineage, ensuring there are clear methods for their measurement and improvement. 
• Ensure compliance with architectural principles, standards and data governance practices across programmes and projects, escalating exceptions to senior design authorities as necessary. 
• Facilitate workshops and consultations with users, data owners and delivery teams to understand user needs, data behaviours and content classification across operational contexts. 
• Continuously scan the agency and the external landscape to identify, assess and incorporate developments and trends in data and information architecture. 

Person specification

• Experience leading the data architecture workstream within complex, multi-phase transformation programmes, including defining strategic direction, shaping delivery approaches and assuring technical quality throughout the lifecycle. 
• Ability to design and implement scalable, interoperable data platforms that operate effectively across hybrid environments — including on-premises infrastructure, private cloud, and public cloud services — while supporting real-time, transactional and analytical use cases. 
• Experience in data modelling across conceptual, logical and physical layers, coupled with a strong grasp of data standards, metadata management, master data management and data stewardship frameworks. 
• Understanding of data lifecycle management, from ingestion and processing to archival and destruction, alongside fluency in modern analytics platforms, data warehousing architectures and information security principles relating to sensitive and regulated datasets. 

Desirable criteria, only to be assessed in the event of a tie break:

• The ability to make and guide effective technical and data decisions, explaining clearly how the decision has been reached.
• The ability to understand and resolve technical disputes across varying levels of complexity and risk.    
• Experience using current and emerging analytical tools and technologies both on-premises and using public cloud  (specifically AWS and/or Microsoft Azure).

Behaviours

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

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills

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

• Ability to design/implement scalable, interoperable data platforms that operate across hybrid environments, inc. on-premises infrastructure, private cloud, & public cloud services, while supporting real-time, transactional, & analytical use cases.
• Experience leading the data architecture workstream within complex, multi-phase transformation programmes, including defining strategic direction, shaping delivery approaches, and assuring technical quality throughout the lifecycle.