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Senior Data Architect

Job details
Posting date: 19 November 2025
Salary: £57,515 per year
Additional salary information: Plus an additional allowance up to £22,885
Hours: Full time
Closing date: 30 November 2025
Location: Southampton
Company: Government Recruitment Service
Job type: Permanent
Job reference: 437109/2

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Summary

Can you translate complex data needs into elegant, actionable solutions that shape strategy and drive meaningful organisational change?

Do you thrive on collaboration, guiding others with confidence and care to build data architecture that generates lasting impact?

If so, we'd love to hear from you!

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) Information Technology (IT) Strategy & Architecture function enables the organisation to deliver world-class services. It is a centre of excellence that is responsible for the technology strategy, delivering a broad portfolio of change to transform the Agency’s legacy technologies and deliver innovative new solutions designed around our customers’ needs.

The architecture team is responsible for the definition of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency technology strategy, the development of the solutions’ architectures required to realise this strategy and ensuring that architecture and technology principles are met and maintained. The role sits within a digital team of user-centred design and architecture and will focus on operational data for a variety of critical systems and change work.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

  • Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
  • 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
  • Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at MCA: Maritime and Coastguard Agency - Department for Transport Careers

The key responsibilities of this role will include but are not limited to:

  • Collaborate with the Chief Data Architect to interpret business requirements and maintain consistency in data architecture across programmes.
  • Participate in governance forums such as the Architecture Review Board and Data Governance Board to review, validate, and approve data models, metadata systems, and related artefacts.
  • Identify and escalate data-related risks, blockers, or deviations from agreed standards to the Chief Data Architect, contributing to continuous improvement of data practices. Provide technical leadership and guidance to partner data architects and delivery teams, ensuring adherence to data architecture principles and standards challenging third-party designs where necessary.
  • Define and maintain the enterprise data architecture, including data models, metadata, integration patterns, and business intelligence or data warehouse structures.
  • Design and support the lifecycle management of data assets- including upgrade, decommissioning, and archiving- in compliance with data policy and architectural strategy.
  • Ensure that data architecture artefacts are documented and maintained in the enterprise architecture repository, and that they remain compliant with MCA’s architecture strategy and principles.

For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, not all criteria may be assessed during the recruitment process; this job advert outlines exactly which ones will be.

Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme

Disability Confident
A Disability Confident employer will generally offer an interview to any applicant that declares they have a disability and meets the minimum criteria for the job as defined by the employer. It is important to note that in certain recruitment situations such as high-volume, seasonal and high-peak times, the employer may wish to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled people and non-disabled people. For more details please go to Disability Confident.

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