The Role
We are seeking an experienced Database Administrator (DBA) to join our Group IT organisation. This role will be responsible for maintaining, optimising, and modernising our enterprise database estate, which underpins key operational and claims platforms globally.
The successful candidate will play a dual role:
* Operational Excellence – ensuring stability, performance, integrity, and security of SQL database environments.
* Modernisation & Transformation – supporting the migration from legacy SQL Server VMs to cloud data services, while helping introduce and operate modern data capabilities (e.g., managed relational platforms, distributed NoSQL, streaming, and analytics) to enable next‑generation claims systems.
This is a hands‑on, business‑critical position with strong visibility across Group IT, Engineering, Architecture, and our new claims platform delivery teams. It’s a hybrid role, working a minimum of 1 day per week from the office in London.
Key Responsibilities
Database Administration & Operations
* Manage, monitor, and optimise SQL Server instances across on‑premise VMs and Azure environments.
* Oversee performance tuning, index optimisation, query analysis, and capacity planning.
* Support BAU change operations and production releases, including executing approved changes in production, troubleshooting incidents, and driving root‑cause analysis.
* Participate in an on‑call rota to support business‑critical services, responding to incidents and service alerts out of hours when required.
* Maintain database availability, disaster recovery, and backup/restore strategies.
* Ensure compliance with security, governance, and audit requirements.
Azure Data Platform Modernisation
* Lead and support the migration of legacy SQL Server workloads to Azure SQL Managed Instance / Azure SQL Database.
* Contribute to database architecture design for cloud‑ready and cloud‑native applications.
* Implement best practices for Azure monitoring, automation, scalability, and resilience.
* Collaborate with DevOps teams to streamline database deployment automation and CI/CD.
Modern Data Platforms (Azure Migration)
* Support the design, configuration, and optimisation of cloud data services for high‑scale workloads (e.g., distributed NoSQL stores such as Cosmos DB, or equivalent).
* Partner with data and engineering teams to enable analytics and reporting on modern platforms (e.g., Microsoft Fabric, Synapse, Databricks, or equivalent).
* Provide guidance on data modelling and performance (relational and non‑relational), partitioning/sharding strategies, throughput and cost management, and operational best practices in cloud environments.
Collaboration & Ways of Working
* Work closely with Developers, Solution Architects, Infrastructure, Security, and the Claims Platform team.
* Contribute to documentation, technical handovers, and operational readiness for new services.
* Participate in continuous improvement activities and introduce modern tooling and automation.
* Act as a technical SME for database practices, mentoring junior team members where applicable.
Required Skills
* Enterprise DBA experience (SQL Server plus exposure to other data platforms)
* Performance optimisation (workload analysis, indexing/physical design, capacity planning)
* Azure managed relational experience (e.g., Azure SQL MI/DB): migration, operations, and tooling
* Distributed NoSQL experience (e.g., Cosmos DB/MongoDB/DynamoDB): data modelling and operational tuning
* Modern analytics/lakehouse concepts (e.g., Fabric/Synapse/Databricks), pipelines, and semantic models
* Backup/restore, high availability, and disaster recovery (design, testing, and execution)
* SQL replication experience (including migration to AVG)
* Monitoring, diagnostics, and incident management (Azure Monitor, Log Analytics)
* Comfortable working in controlled production environments (change management, release windows, safe script execution) and participating in on‑call support.
* Automation and CI/CD for data/database changes (PowerShell/Python; IaC where applicable)
* Database security (access control, encryption, compliance/audit)
Equal Opportunity Employer
At Charles Taylor, we are proud to be an Inclusive Employer. We foster an environment of mutual respect with zero tolerance to discrimination of any kind regardless of age, disability, gender identity, marital or family status, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation.
We recognise that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is essential in enabling us to deliver better insurance outcomes and fulfilling our responsibilities to clients, colleagues, and the community. We proactively promote and celebrate differences and strive to create an environment where our people feel included and can reach their full potential. We take pride in our inclusive and diverse culture, which is supported by strong partnerships and a transparent, fair recruitment process.
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