Principal Data & Systems Architect

CompanyWomen in Data®

LocationGlasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom

Posted At3/4/2026

UK Visa Sponsorship Analytics

Occupation Type

IT business analysts, architects and systems designers

Occupation Code Skill LevelHigher Skilled

Sponsorship Salary Threshold

£54,900 (£28.15 per hour)

Occupation rate applies

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Description

Salary: £72,717

Working pattern: Full-time

Business area: IBCA - Data

Location: Glasgow, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Job summary

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is responsible for delivering a compensation scheme that has been long awaited by the infected blood community to provide financial compensation to victims of infected blood on a UK-wide basis.

This role sits within our Data Operations team in the IBCA Data Directorate and will lead the team of data solution, and data architects that are focus on the design of the IBCA data platform and organisational wide data modelling.

The Data Operations team is responsible for developing and running safe and secure data solutions that provide a single source of truth for those going through their compensation journey. They are designing and building a new data platform using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and data management and intelligence products using Databricks and Quantexa.

We are taking a product-centric approach treating data as a product and are building squads around our products, with a focus on paying compensation to those impacted by the infected blood scandal seamlessly.

You will focus on designing scalable and flexible data solutions for data management processes (including data integration and master data management), ensuring data quality and continuous data publication to our consuming users and services, and driving a culture of problem statement driven design.

Working at IBCA gives you a huge opportunity to make an impact on those who deserve compensation, and this role suits a candidate who can spearhead solutions from the ground up to take from ideation to reality so that data is an enabler to everything IBCA does.

Job description

As the Principle Data & Systems Architect for our data platform and products, you’ll be critical to delivering the design of the IBCA data platform through technical solution and data architecture in addition to data modelling capabilities. You will mature the quality of our architecture practices and should be committed to delivering high-impact, secure data solutions to achieve IBCA’s objectives.

This post is within a data delivery setting, especially one focussed on AWS, Quantexa and Databricks.

You will:

Set the direction for data and systems architecture ensuring infrastructure is modular, resilient and aligned with business objectives

Provide technical guidance for the development of designs across the data platform including integration and master data management encompassing secure by design principles such as ‘privacy by design’ and ‘zero trust’ architectures

Ensure designs are scalable, secure and efficient and that they create systemic resilience of all data assets against emerging threats

Lead efforts to standardise the enterprise data fabric streamlining ingestion patterns and integrating data from various sources of varying fidelity, ensuring a ‘single source of truth’ that promotes data consistency, accuracy, and quality

Be responsible for data ontology ensuring that there are enterprise logical and physical data models embedded across the organisation to support operational efficiency and analytical capabilities, and these follow set data standards and data management policies

Build and mentor a high-performing architecture function, fostering a culture of technical excellence and

cross-functional collaboration.

Help the data architecture practices thrive, you will call on your expertise in emerging data management approaches including on data centralisation and apply these to help the organisation deliver success

Develop our internal data architecture capability by developing L&D routeways, shaping careers paths and recruiting talent to the organisation

Provide leadership and guidance to the team, further developing your own architecture, delivery management and leadership skills

Work with business stakeholders and across digital service teams, understanding their needs and translating them into high- and low-level architecture designs

Work with industry partners to leverage the best of new and emerging tools and approaches

Responsibilities

Strategic Planning: Develop and execute the Data & Systems Architecture strategy. You will ensure the technical roadmap doesn't just store data, but actively powers business intelligence and AI readiness, aligning complex infrastructure with long-term organisational goals.
Team Leadership: Use your expertise to build and maintain excellence in data & system architecture capabilities by building, leading, and mentoring a team of technical solution architects, data architects and modellers, fostering a collaborative and high-performing culture that bridges the gap between engineering

and strategic business value.

Data Platform Solution Design: Design and model robust, scalable, efficient and cost-effective data solutions for data ingestion, transformation, integration, publication and storage – and be the assurer of designs at architecture review boards such as Technical Design Authority.

Data Quality: Ensure data quality and integrity across the data platform.

Data Governance: Prescribe the level of data governance required, taking responsibility for assurance and make recommendations to ensure compliance with legal, regulatory and security standards.

System Interoperability: Define the standards for the Data Platform to ensure API-first architecture and microservices so they there is seamless data flow and system integration via data publication.

Collaboration: Work closely with business teams to understand data requirements and recommend design choices and provide technical expertise; and partner with senior leaders to provide assurance on solutions as they transition between design, implementation and live.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

Accomplished expert with extensive hands-on experience at a senior level of defining and implementing data and system architecture. You must have significant experience in designing AWS ecosystems that host data management systems and orchestrate data integration, data quality & transformation processes, data matching and master data management and data publication. (Lead essential criteria)

Deep proficiency in architecting end-to-end data lifecycles. This includes the strategic application of Data Lakes, Lakehouses, and NoSQL/SQL environments, with a focus on system interoperability.

Demonstrable experience in building or radically transforming data & system architecture functions from scratch, particularly within high-sensitivity or regulated environments (e.g. handling PII/sensitive personal data at scale).

Expert-level knowledge of embedding GDPR, Cloud Security Principles, and Zero-Trust frameworks into the very fabric of data system designs, rather than treating them as "bolt-on" compliance tasks.

Expert in managing the balance between rapid delivery and long-term technical sustainability, and managing these standards through architecture peer review such as Technical Design Authority.

Significant experience leading and scaling multi-disciplinary architecture teams. You have a proven ability to mentor and foster a culture of high performance within Agile/DevOps frameworks.

Working at senior leadership level, establishing and maintaining organisational level networks and actively engaging other senior leaders.

Desirable Criteria

Experience of working with the Quantexa Decision Intelligence Platform and Databricks.
Management of contracts and 3rd party suppliers for software and professional services.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Behaviours

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

Leadership

Technical skills

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

Technical design throughout the lifecycle (Expert)
Turning business problems into data design (Expert)
Data modelling (Expert)

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £72,717, Infected Blood Compensation Authority contributes £21,066 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Premium allowance paid monthly after probation

Learning and development tailored to your role

An environment with flexible working options

A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity

A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%

32.5 days of paid annual leave plus 8 bank holidays

Family friendly policies to support you and your everyday responsibilities

Enhanced maternity and paternity leave, up to 12 months shared parental leave

Recent changes in skilled worker visa eligibility mean that a Skilled Worker must have a job offer in an eligible skilled occupation from a Home Office-approved sponsor. From 22 July 2025, the job must normally be skilled to level 6 (graduate level) on the Regulated Qualifications Framework for England and Northern Ireland, or the equivalent level in Wales or Scotland, or be included on either the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List. Please be aware that if the role is not eligible for a skilled worker visa that we will be unable to provide sponsorship.

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