Senior Data Architect - Department for Education - G7

Location

Coventry, Darlington, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Sheffield

Please note – Nottingham currently have site controls in place. Therefore, this location option is only available to existing DfE employees already assigned to this office location.

About the job

Job summary

Join the Department for Education as a Senior Data Architect and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education and children’s social care through data-driven innovation.

In this role, you will design and implement data flows and models that not only describe the current state of critical services but also set ambitious targets that better fulfil the strategic data needs of individual services and the Department as a whole. Your work will enable smarter, evidence-based decisions that improve outcomes for citizens across England. 

You will collaborate with a portfolio of delivery teams working on services essential to education and social care. By defining robust data architectures, standards, and governance frameworks, you will ensure that data is accurate, accessible, and interoperable across systems. This is an opportunity to lead on creating future-proof solutions that support advanced analytics and emerging technologies, while making a tangible impact on services that matter most to society. 

If you are successful, you could be working in Digital Data Technology (DDT) as part of: 

• Enterprise Data for Insight team, where we deliver cutting edge data services across the school and children’s social care sectors. Our flagship data services cover different aspects of learner and children’s social care data, which are used to support: parental choice for school selection; performance tables; Ofsted assurance; schools, Local Authorities; researchers and the wider public. (This position is available in all the advertised locations). 
• Enterprise Data team. Data plays a key role in achieving the department’s vision; Within Enterprise Data we are striving to make DfE a data-led organisation, where we can have responsive decisions that leads to better outcomes for all children, young people and adults. The senior data architect role will help us achieve that by defining and optimising data flows across our complex cloud estate. (This position is available in Coventry, Sheffield and Manchester.) 
• Enterprise Data for Funding and Oversight team, to develop and enhance the post-16 data modelling services that we offer to our users, including the Further Education Data Lakehouse. (This position is available in Coventry, Sheffield and Manchester.)

Job description

As a Senior Data Architect, your main responsibilities will include:

• Maintaining an excellent relationship with your Service Owner(s) to understand their needs, looking for deeper underlying problems to solve and promoting the wider opportunities for transformation.
• Creating comprehensive data model (entity relationship) diagrams for each relational schema forming a part of the Service. This will cover each level of data modelling of Conceptual, Logical and Physical.
• Reusing or creating, common entities and attributes wherever there is a direct conceptual correspondence.
• Taking responsibility for the data architecture of your portfolio of services, including how they interact with up- and downstream data systems, even as these evolve over time.
• Leading on problems that require broad architectural thinking in your service(s), while creating space for data specialists to take the initiative on the detail.
• Defining and maintaining the data architecture, including metadata, and orchestration for analytical use.
• Working with Data and Service Owners to capture decisions on Data Classification at attribute level.
• Providing input into data dictionaries.
• Designing, supporting and providing guidance for the upgrade, management, decommission and archive of data in compliance with data policy
• Considering Data Access Control processes and documenting decisions.
• Playing an active role in the DfE Architecture community, where you will recognise and share successful implementations of tools and techniques, as well as creating a sense of unified purpose.
• Helping to build a diverse, inclusive culture across the architecture community with a positive attitude towards feedback.
• Working with your Lead Data Architect, colleagues and peers on profession-based activities (and cross-profession), such as defining standards and guidance around best practice.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

1. Assessed in application and both interview stages:

• Experience of the practice of data model design selecting appropriate data modelling patterns.
• Experience of creating data flow diagrams using clear notation and leading the development of data orchestration.
• Experience of delivering against a wide variety of use cases, including both operational and analytical, through effective data platform technology decisions.

2. Assessed in application and second interview stage:

• The ability to work with technical and non-technical stakeholders to achieve agreement on delivery plans.
• The ability to look beyond immediate technical problems and identify the wider implications.
• The ability to manage challenging and sensitive communications and take difficult decisions.

Desirable Criteria 

• Experience using data modelling tools such as Erwin data modeller or equivalent.
• Experience of mentoring and supporting colleagues in multi-disciplinary teams, one-to-one or in groups.
• Ability to work with stakeholders to produce effective platform and workload selection to meet business needs.
• Practical knowledge at many levels of the data stack, from querying, down to infrastructure and networking.

Desirable criteria will only be assessed at interview, in the event of a tie break situation, to make an informed decision.