Senior Government Finance Function (GFF) Data Architect / Engineer - HM Treasury - G7

Location: This post can be based in London (1 Horse Guards Road), Norwich (Rosebery Court) or Darlington (Feethams House).

About the job

Job summary: If you’re interested in making a difference to people’s lives, the Treasury can offer you an exciting opportunity to influence decision making that affects the whole of the UK. Working at the heart of government, we collaborate across government to promote responsible public spending and drive strong and sustainable economic growth. Our work ranges from protecting customers through the regulation of the financial sector, helping to reduce carbon emissions and creating a greener economy, to promoting British trade around the world and supporting people across the country on jobs, growth and more.

We are part of the Darlington Economic Campus, a pioneering new cross-government policy making hub which brings people together to play an active role in the most important issues of the day whilst working closer to the communities we serve. The campus provides the opportunity for people from all over the UK to help shape the future of the country, and our flexible working practices ensure you can collaborate effectively with our partners.

About the Group

The Public Spending Group is a high-profile and rewarding place to work. We help the Chancellor decide what to spend £1.2 trillion a year on and ensure government delivers value for money for the taxpayer. We are responsible for reporting to Parliament and the public on how taxpayers’ money is spent. We drive forward improved outcomes and efficiency in public services and make sure value for money is at the centre of decision-making through better evaluation, data and analysis.

We advise on overall government policy on public sector pay and pensions, the biggest single driver of public spending. We collaborate with and directly support departments to deliver the Government Finance Function strategy, building finance, debt and risk capability across government and developing the management information, tools, and frameworks to better understand and ensure value for money.

About the Team

The Strategy, Performance & Improvement (SPI) Team is one of the central Government Finance Function (GFF) teams supporting over 9,000 finance colleagues across government. We set the Finance Standard (GovS006), monitor performance, and maintain a central library of best practice—the NOVA Functional Reference Model to share, improve and drive efficiency in the delivery of finance services.

NOVA contains a full suite of functional design artefacts—Processes, KPIs, Business Glossary and a comprehensive Data Dictionary—to be adopted by all government organisations through the delivery of shared services and back-office systems. We are committed to enhancing finance performance by supporting the adoption of the NOVA finance functional design and its data standards.

Driving up finance data maturity, improving data architecture, and creating data integration solutions are central to our GFF 2030 Strategy and ambition for an Insightful and Data Driven finance function. The seventeen-person team works across a wide range of partners, providing the individual with the opportunity to be part of creating positive and long-lasting change across finance function communities.

The role offers exposure across Whitehall, including the chance to work and influence at the highest levels of the Civil Service. The team prides itself on providing an encouraging working environment, which role models flexible working and inclusivity, with opportunities to build networks within the finance function and beyond.

About the Job

We are looking for 2 experienced senior data professionals to develop, govern and deliver a Government Finance Data Strategy across its current and future systems and create new and insightful data driven analytics for Government and His Majesty’s Treasury to use as it becomes a more agile and productive state.

We are looking for people who have strong backgrounds in data architecture and/or data engineering as defined by the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework. We are open to shaping the roles with successful candidates to help ensure that we strike the right balance of skills.

The post holders will be part of a growing community of data professionals and will be expected to champion excellence in data and help grow data & digital skills across HM Treasury and the Government Finance Function.

The key responsibilities of the post holders will be to:

• Define a Government Finance Data Strategy, vision, and development roadmap, ensuring alignment with departments and wider Government Digital and Data Strategies and Shared Services Strategy and reporting on progress as outcomes are achieved and benefits are realised.
• Deliver a Finance Data Lineage, assessing and capturing the current critical data elements/data sets and systems used across the Government Finance Function.
• Build a clear understanding of the data lineage between key central reports, with a specific focus on Public Spending data structures including HM Treasury’s OSCAR reporting system.
• Own the Finance Data Standards, hosted in NOVA and engage with, support and lead on the finance data requirements and design for any future systems required for central financial reporting within Government and HM Treasury.
• Showcase excellent metadata quality management and embed effective processes and procedures in product lifecycles to drive high quality outputs and standards, utilising Project, and Programme Management methodologies, best practices, and ways of working.
• Design and implement data pipelines by building data systems to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from various sources (e.g., MS Fabric or other).
• Lead and facilitate strong stakeholder engagement for effective Data Management, Data Integrity, and Data Governance, across Government and 3rd Parties but particularly with Functional and Department Data Leads.
• Engage and support Data communities to share knowledge and approaches, and provide training, guidance, and support for Data Management best practices.

Desired Skills & Qualifications:

• Data Warehousing – Strong proficiency with data warehousing platforms and technologies with strong examples of use (e.g., MS Fabric, Azure Warehouse etc.)
• ETL and ELT – Strong experience and examples of ETL/ELT frameworks and toolsets.
• IT Service Management experience and understanding aligned to ITIL v4 or an earlier version.
• Delivery - Agile Project Management Foundation & Practitioner OR APM Project Management Qualification / Prince2 Foundation & Practitioner or equivalent.

Person specification: We are looking for the below skills, experience and behaviours and we will ask you to demonstrate these in your application form.

This role will assess you at the Grade 7 level:

• Proven experience of establishing data standards, metadata management, data structures, and expertise in data analysis.
• Experience of Digital Solutions such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Platforms) and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management) Technology, including the best practice application of Data Standards.
• Understand how your role fits with and supports organisational objectives.
• Recognise the wider priorities and ensure work is in the national interest.
• Anticipate & understands internal and external trends and practices and encourage & share innovative ideas from diverse range of colleagues and partners to generate continuous improvement.
• Excellent communication skills and experience of translating, in an accessible way, technical and complex information, with a track record of influencing a broad range of partners and audiences.

The lead criterion is: Experience. If we receive large volumes of applications, we will conduct an initial sift on the lead criterion only.

Required Qualifications:

• Digital Data Architecture – Experience delivering cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or GCP, with relevant TOGAF qualification (e.g., Enterprise Architect, Data Scientist etc.)
• Programming - Strong proficiency in SQL and other programming languages, such as Python or Java, with an associated qualification (e.g., Microsoft Azure SQL, Oracle SQL, IBM SQL etc.)

Applicants who are part-qualified or with sufficient relevant experience against the Required Qualifications, who are willing to study towards these qualifications are encouraged to apply.

Behaviours: We will assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Communicating and Influencing