Data Architect - UK Export Finance - G7

Location

Westminster, London

About the job

Job summary

The Data Architect is a key member of the EA Team and is responsible for setting the vision for the UKEF’s use of data, through data design, to ensure that data is managed properly and meets the organisation’s needs.

It is essential that you are positive, proactive and collaborative with a commitment to providing excellent customer service.

Job description

The key responsibilities and deliverables for this post are working with your UKEF colleagues and customers to ensure that UKEF is able to meet evolving customer demand using a secure, scalable and  robust enterprise architecture blueprint.

You will design and build data models to fulfil the strategic data needs of the organisation, as defined by the Enterprise Architect. You will design, support and provide guidance for the upgrade, management, decommission and archive of data in compliance with UKEF’s data policy. You will provide expert advice on data including the definition and maintenance of our data technology architecture, including metadata, integration, data dictionaries, business intelligence and our data reporting capability.

The main activities of your role will be:

Communicating between the technical and non-technical. You can communicate effectively across organisational, technical and political boundaries, understanding the context. You can make complex and technical information and language simple and accessible for non-technical audiences. You can advocate on behalf of a team and communicate what it does, to create trust and authenticity. You can successfully respond to challenges.

Communicating data. You can use the most appropriate medium and tooling to visualise data, to tell compelling stories that are relevant to business goals and can be acted upon. You can present, communicate and disseminate data effectively, appropriately and with high impact.

Data analysis and synthesis. You can translate data into valuable insights that inform decisions. You can effectively involve teams in analytics and synthesis to increase consensus and challenge assumptions. You can identify and use the most appropriate analytical techniques, and you have an understanding of analytical tools. You can demonstrate numeracy. You can show an awareness of advances in digital analytics tools and data manipulation products, and can keep up to date with them. You can collect, collate, cleanse, synthesise and interpret data to derive meaningful and actionable insights.

Data governance. You can understand data governance, how this applies to data architecture and how it works in relation to other organisational governance structures. You can participate in or deliver the assurance of a service, project or programme.

Data innovation. You can explore new, more efficient and effective ways of deriving value from data. You can optimise and design data to support business opportunities.

Data modelling. You can produce data models and understand where to use different types. You can understand different tools and compare different data models. You can reverse-engineer a data model from a live system. You can understand industry-recognised data modelling patterns and standards.

Data standards (data architect). You can identify and establish data standards for an organisation. You can recognise published best practice and apply it effectively within government. You can communicate the business benefit of data standards, and champion and govern those standards across the organisation.

Metadata management. You can understand metadata management and the tool options to support its delivery. You can design and maintain the appropriate metadata repositories to enable the organisation to understand its data assets.

Problem management (data architect). You can identify where data resolutions can contribute to resolving an organisation’s problems, and you can log, analyse, identify and implement the appropriate solutions. You can work collaboratively to ensure that risks and issues are managed, and take appropriate actions to ensure that a problem is fixed.

Strategic thinking. You can take an overall perspective on business issues, events and activities, and discuss their wider implications and long-term impact. You can determine patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements. You can effectively focus on outcomes rather than solutions and activities.

Turning business problems into data design. You can work with business and technology stakeholders to translate business problems into data designs. You can create optimal designs through iterative processes, aligning the system requirements and organisational objectives with the user needs.

These activities are linked to the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework Data architect - Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework

This list is not exhaustive, and you may be required to carry out additional duties according to business needs.

Person specification

Essential

Qualifications

• Relevant degree or equivalent experience. (A, I)
• Recognised architectural qualification e.g. TOGAF, BCS (A)

Knowledge

• Working knowledge, with the ability to demonstrate extensive experience in the field of data architecture, covering a wide range of activities, aligning to the technology, digital and data requirements of the role; to ensure business priorities, value for money and risk are all considerations. (A, I, P, T)
• Knowledge of the creation of and embedding of relevant architectural policies, standards and models and how to effectively demonstrate in a professional environment. (I, P, T)

Skills/Ability

• Creating and delivering data architectures. (A, P, I.)
• High level stakeholder relationship management. (A, I)
• (A, I)

Experience

• Leadership and management in a data architecture function. (A, I)
• Experience of working across the business to ensure strategic needs are captured within the vision and roadmaps of the data and enterprise architectures. (A, I)
• Experience of advising and developing the future state architecture of an organisation to meet strategic needs, including a working knowledge of cloud technologies. (A, I)
• Experience of applying best practice Data Management methods, to develop data quality metrics to optimise system performance. (A, I)
• Experience of applying best in practice architectural concepts and processes, including working with relevant tooling that supports data and enterprise architecture development, mapping and monitoring. (A, I)

Qualifications

• Relevant degree or equivalent experience. (A, I)
• Recognised architectural qualification e.g. TOGAF, BCS (A)

Behaviours

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

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

Technical skills

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

• Technical Questions
• Presentation - the topic will be agreed by UKEF and shared with the relevant candidates ahead of the interview