Senior Data Architect

Location: Bristol or Manchester hybrid (2 days per week) (regular travel to partner sites across the UK and Ireland as needed) 
Role Type: Permanent (full-time preferred, flexible working considered) 
  

About PACT Solutions:  

PACT Solutions is a specialist management and digital transformation consultancy working exclusively with higher education institutions across the UK.  

We help universities solve complex challenges across strategy, student records, data, change and delivery. Our work often sits at the heart of major institutional transformation, helping partners improve the student journey, modernise operations and deliver change more effectively.  

PACT has grown quickly and is now entering its next phase. We are moving from a founder-led boutique consultancy into a more scaled and structured business, while protecting the quality, culture and partner focus that have made us successful.  

Our culture is crucial to our success. Each day, our team significantly contributes to our business and that of our partners.   

We combine the agility and collaborative spirit of a close-knit consultancy with the credibility, structure, and professionalism needed to deliver meaningful digital transformation.  

Our values sit at the heart of everything we do and are core to our business.  

Partnership: We work with you, not for you.  

Integrity: We do the right thing, even when it requires difficult conversations.   

Curiosity: We dig deeper to uncover what will truly deliver value.   

Transformation: We focus on outcomes that create lasting, measurable improvement.   

The Role 

We are looking for a Senior Data Architect to shape the data architecture, platform and governance foundations that enable our higher education partners to make better use of their data. You will work across complex transformation programmes, helping institutions move from fragmented data estates to coherent, secure and scalable data capabilities. 

This is a senior architecture role combining strategic thinking with practical technical depth. You will define target-state data architectures and roadmaps, guide the design of modern cloud data platforms, and provide architectural assurance across data migration, integration, governance and analytics initiatives. 

You will bring expertise in Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Fabric, alongside a strong understanding of data modelling, data governance and enterprise data management. You will work closely with partner stakeholders, delivery teams and PACT colleagues to turn complex needs into clear, pragmatic architecture decisions. 

Purpose of the role 

To establish and assure data architectures that provide trusted, well-governed and accessible data, enabling higher education institutions to improve operations, decision-making, analytics and future AI adoption. 

Key Responsibilities 

1. Data architecture and strategy 

• Lead assessments of current data landscapes, identifying architectural gaps, data risks, integration issues and opportunities for improvement. 

• Define target-state enterprise data architectures, data strategies, roadmaps and principles that align with partner objectives and transformation plans. 

• Develop conceptual, logical and physical data models, business information models and data domain designs across complex enterprise environments. 

• Set practical architecture standards for data products, data flows, integration patterns, metadata and data lifecycle management. 

2. Data platform and solution design 

• Design scalable cloud data platforms and lakehouse solutions using Microsoft Fabric, OneLake, Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, Azure Synapse and related Azure services. 

• Define approaches for batch and real-time data ingestion, transformation, storage, integration and consumption. 

• Guide the design of data products, pipelines and analytics solutions, including approaches to schema evolution, data validation and data quality. 

• Provide architectural assurance for data migration, legacy modernisation and the transition from fragmented point solutions to modern cloud services. 

3. Data governance, security and quality 

• Design and embed proportionate data governance frameworks covering ownership, classification, lineage, metadata, data quality and retention. 

• Apply Microsoft Purview and related tools to strengthen cataloguing, discovery, governance and compliance. 

• Ensure architecture addresses data protection, access control, privacy, security and regulatory requirements. 

• Define standards for secure and supportable platform operations, including monitoring, resilience, capacity and cost management. 

4. Stakeholder and consulting leadership 

• Lead discovery, architecture workshops and design forums with senior business and technical stakeholders. 

• Translate technical complexity into clear recommendations, decision papers and roadmaps that support confident investment and delivery decisions. 

• Work collaboratively with programme, product, integration, engineering and data teams to make architectural decisions actionable. 

• Challenge constructively where existing approaches create avoidable risk, duplication or poor long-term outcomes. 

5. Capability development 

• Develop PACT's data architecture methods, reusable assets, standards and propositions. 

• Coach consultants and technical colleagues in sound data architecture, governance and platform design practice. 

• Contribute data architecture expertise to proposals, bids and partner conversations. 

6. Commercial awareness 

• Able to understand the commercial context of an assignment, including scope, value, priorities and delivery commitments. 

• Confident having commercial conversations with stakeholders, balancing partner needs with PACT’s commitments and objectives. 

• Demonstrates sound judgement in identifying opportunities, risks and implications that may affect the value or delivery of work. 

Essential experience 

• Significant experience as a Data Architect, Enterprise Data Architect, Solution Architect or similar senior architecture role in complex enterprise environments. 

• Strong experience defining enterprise data architectures, data strategies, target-state roadmaps and data governance frameworks. 

• Deep knowledge of modern cloud data platforms, with hands-on experience of Microsoft Fabric, OneLake, Azure Data Factory and related Azure services. 

• Strong data modelling capability across conceptual, logical and physical models, including dimensional modelling, data vault or comparable approaches. 

• Experience designing data integration, data migration, lakehouse or enterprise data platform solutions across multiple systems and data domains. 

• Experience with data governance, metadata, lineage, data quality, master data and reference data management, including Microsoft Purview or comparable tools. 

• Ability to design secure, resilient and cost-conscious data solutions, including identity, access control, network security and operational monitoring. 

• Experience facilitating architecture workshops, influencing senior stakeholders and communicating complex technical trade-offs clearly. 

Desirable 

• Experience within higher education or a similarly complex, regulated environment. 

• Experience of data architecture across student information, finance, HR, CRM, learning or other enterprise platforms. 

• Experience with Azure DevOps, CI/CD, infrastructure as code and automated data pipeline deployment. 

• Experience of data mesh, data products, advanced analytics or AI enablement. 

• Experience in consultancy or transformation environments.