Lead Data Architect (Grade M1)


Company:	Scottish Funding Council
Salary:	£66,924 to £78,930 a year
Hours:	Full-time
Location:	Edinburgh, EH12 5HD
Working pattern:	Hybrid - 4 days remote
Job type:	Permanent
Posting date:	9 Sept 2026
Closing date:	27 Sept 2026

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Summary

Our ambition is for Scotland to be the best place in the world to learn, educate, research and innovate, so that all of our nation can flourish.

Our purpose is to create and sustain a world-leading system of tertiary education, research and innovation that changes lives for the better, enriches society and supports sustainable and inclusive economic growth.

The role is to provide leadership for SFC's data architecture, establishing data models, standards and design principles that enable trusted, connected and effective use of data to support organisational priorities and informed decision making.

Key Responsibilities

Act as SFCs authority for Data Architecture, providing specialist expertise, thought leadership, and guidance on data design, modelling, and data architecture standards.

Define, maintain, and evolve SFCs data architecture, ensuring alignment with organisational priorities, data strategy and future business needs.

Lead the development and maintenance of enterprise, domain, conceptual, logical and physical data models, creating a shared understanding of data across SFC.

Establish and maintain data architecture principles, standards, reference architectures and design patterns that support trusted, scalable, and sustainable use of data.

Lead data architecture governance and design assurance, providing challenge, recommendations and architectural oversight for significant data initiatives and programmes.

Provide expert advice to senior stakeholders, influencing decisions through evidence-based recommendations and helping teams understand architectural options, risks and trade-offs.

Build consensus across teams and programmes, ensuring data architecture standards and principles are consistently applied across platforms, solutions and services.

Define architecture approaches that improve interoperability, integration, governance, and reuse of data, supporting more efficient and joined-up services across SFC.

Identify and manage data architecture related risks, technical debt and opportunities, ensuring emerging issues are addressed and escalated appropriately.

Promote data architecture capability and maturity across SFC by coaching, mentoring and supporting colleagues, fostering greater understanding and adoption of good architecture practices.

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