Senior Data Architect (Ref: 20739)

Location: Staffordshire, UK; Elgin Ave., London W9 2NR, UK; Scotland; Wales, UK

Salary: 58,511 - 70,725 per year

Employment: Flexible

Category: IT

Posted: 2026-08-04

Valid to: 2026-08-19

Apply: here

Employer: Ministry of Justice

This is a National Role

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is responsible for the administration of criminal, civil and family courts and tribunals in England and Wales. Our roles support our service users and colleagues, where people and businesses access potentially life-changing justice. We’re looking for individuals who are committed to public service and want to make a difference in people’s lives in delivering justice. If you’re interested in developing a career with a real purpose, please apply.

You will be working for the Principal Enterprise Architect, as part of the Digital Architecture, Strategy and Innovation function (DASI). As a Senior Data Architect, you will be responsible for designing the data architecture and ensure that it is in line with the business data strategy, taking into consideration the various data sources, information assets, consumers of it, and the management systems. You will be operating within one of the areas of the business, such as Crime, Civil, Family & Tribunals, Judicial and Operations or Headquarters functions of HMCTS. You’ll have a vision for government services and communicate this to technical and non-technical stakeholders alike. You’ll ensure a project’s overall data design meets user needs and acceptance criteria, whilst conforming to time and budget constraints. You’ll thrive using agile methods and enjoy working collaboratively with Heads of IT Departments and multidisciplinary teams.

You will require a balance of good technical know-how with leadership and relationship skills to effectively influence key decision makers and to manage & direct service providers or solution delivery partners. You will have strong leadership, communication and relationship building skills and a highly collaborative team player approach as well as the ability to interact with senior stakeholders and manage feedback from multiple stakeholder groups. You will work proactively to highlight and evaluate new or innovative opportunities that are enabled by the HMCTS Digital Architecture and collaborate with MoJ Digital Services to ensure that shared or integrated services and technology continue to provide HMCTS with effective solutions into the future. You will be an effective liaison with Government Digital Services (GDS) to verify, clarify and interpret government standards as part of the definition and evolution of HMCTS Digital Standards and actively maintain the architecture knowledge base for DASI to reflect changes in the solution landscape, standards, strategies and roadmaps.

Your role as Senior Data Architect will encompass several key responsibilities:

• Develop information models within the business function that you are responsible for and ensure it is aligned with strategy (and other) needs.
• Contribute to the wider HMCTS information model as required.
• Ensure the information model and its metadata is integrated with wider architectures (business, technology, security etc.) needs, within the business function that you are responsible for.
• Advise stakeholders on improvements to information model to gain improvements to their business.
• Understand and assure data operations such as data interfaces within the organisation – an expert and in-depth knowledge of data received, consumed, processed and produced – within the business function that you are responsible for and wider HMCTS as required.
• Gate keeper of data architectural standards, patterns, and modelling techniques, develops where appropriate and ensures they are developed by the appropriate teams/programmes.
• Active engagement in information governance to review, approve, communicate and ensure adherence to the Information and Data Strategy.
• Define where required, and contribute to the suitable means and processes for the assurance and governance process.
• Contribute to, and define where appropriate, the data (schema) modelling and analysis tools, methods and standards and seeks to continually improve them.
• Deliver architectural artefacts pertinent to data and information, ranging from high level enterprise architecture to ER modelling, API specifications, and data flow diagrams.
• Support information management colleagues delivering data analytics and other key information capabilities, while liaising with other stakeholders including Information Architects.
• Work closely with the Information Assurance and other members of the Cyber Security team to ensure HMCTS's information is managed safely, securely and legally.
• Assist, and lead where required, Operations or other teams in undertaking sizing exercises and capacity planning focusing on storage.
• Write or contribute to commercial specifications through various procurement vehicles and frameworks, throughout the procurement process.

Essential skills:

• Ability and experience of engaging with senior management and stakeholders and leading the representation of the work of your team and demonstrating its contribution to overall organisation goals, while communicating complex ideas in a focused, simple and commercially relevant manner to technical and non-technical senior audience.
• Experience of working collaboratively with Senior Heads of Departments and multi-disciplinary teams.
• Experience and understanding of defining and building information/data models to provide a full understanding of data and expose relevant issues, risks and opportunities managing cyber and information security challenges for digital services, including metadata management and data governance.
• Experience in CASE and data modelling tools (Erwin or similar), conversant with data modelling notations, data architecture design techniques, patterns, standards and modelling tools.
• Profound understanding of data lifecycle, from acquisition/data entry through to data management and retrieval, and archiving, including Master Data Management (MDM).
• Profound understanding of how information and data are used to support delivery of business outcomes.
• Experience of working in large, complex organisations with multiple data requirements and a data catalogue containing 100s of datasets with comprehensive metadata.
• Experience in creating and managing data using RDBMS or No SQL, writing ETL processes and retrieving data using languages such as SQL, SPARQL, Xpath etc, with knowledge of event-driven architecture patterns including publish-subscribe and data streaming.
• Experience in leading on, or playing a major role, in procurements of data (data acquisition), services and onboarding of new suppliers.
• Experience presenting data architecture designs to technical governance forums.

Experience in one or more of the following is desirable: GIS, BI, visualisation, Python.

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

• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Making Effective Decisions

Benefits:

• Alongside your salary of 58,511, Ministry of Justice contributes 16,950 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.
• Access to learning and development.
• A working environment that supports a range of flexible working options to enhance your work life balance.
• A working culture which encourages inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• Annual Leave.
• Public Holidays.
• Season Ticket Advance.

For more information about the recruitment process, benefits and allowances and answers to general queries, please click the below link which will direct you to our Candidate Information Page.

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action.

Selection process details: This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours and Experience. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities.

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants:

• Name: SSCL Recruitment Enquiries Team
• Email: moj-recruitment-vetting-enquiries@resourcing.soprasteria.co.uk
• Telephone: 0345 241 5359