Location: Edinburgh, Newcastle, Luton, Bristol OR Southampton (fully onsite at one of these UK based sites) Duration: 6 month initial contract Inside IR35 Role details: Our client, a prominent player in the Defence & Security sector, is looking for Data Architects to join their team on a contract basis. Whilst the site preference is Edinburgh or Newcastle, the team can also support contractors working from their Luton, Bristol or Southampton site. Due to the secure environments, you will be required onsite at least 4 days per week. Note, active SC clearance required! Key Responsibilities: Design and implement enterprise-level data architecture solutions, including databases, data warehouses, and data lakes. Develop and maintain logical, physical, and conceptual data models. Define data management standards, policies, and best practices. Work with data engineers to design and optimise ETL/ELT pipelines for structured and unstructured data. Ensure data quality, consistency, and security across platforms. Collaborate with business stakeholders to understand data requirements and translate them into technical solutions. Evaluate and recommend new data technologies, tools, and platforms to enhance data capabilities. Oversee data integration across cloud and on-premises environments. Support data governance initiatives, including metadata management, master data management (MDM), and compliance. Provide technical leadership and mentorship to data engineering and analytics teams. Job Requirements: Bachelor's degree in STEM, Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, or related field (Master's preferred). Strong experience in data architecture, database design, or data engineering. Proficiency in SQL and database technologies (e.g., Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL). Knowledge of data warehouse and lakehouse architectures. Familiarity with ETL/ELT and orchestration tools (e.g., Informatica, Talend, Apache Airflow). Experience establishing and maintaining data governance frameworks. Experience complying with data security requirements. Experience designing data models. Excellent problem-solving, communication, and documentation skills. Familiarity with AI/ML data pipelines and analytics platforms. Preferred Qualifications: Experience with cloud data platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud). Experience with big data technologies (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Kafka). Experience with UML/SYSML. Strong understanding of API integration and microservices data flow. If you have a strong background in data architecture and are eager to collaborate with IT teams, data engineers, system engineers, and stakeholders to define data models, data flow processes, and governance frameworks, apply now!