Head of Audit Data Governance in Bristol

The Head of Audit Data Governance will sit horizontally across our Solutions and Run & Maintain organisations, working closely with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Transformation, Operations, and the Audit Practice. You will lead a multipillar data function spanning Data Governance, Data Quality, Data as Insight, and Data as a Service, ensuring that data drives value, supports audit quality, and enables scalable and trustworthy digital products. The role is responsible for defining, operationalising and continuously improving a holistic, enterprise-aligned data operating model across the UK Audit business, ensuring the people, processes, technology and controls needed to manage data as a strategic asset are fully in place.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement a unified Data Operations strategy aligned to the firm’s Enterprise Data Strategy and Audit Technology’s transformation roadmap.
• Provide leadership across the four data pillars, ensuring cohesive delivery and standardisation across portfolios.
• Shape the long-term vision for data as a strategic asset within Audit, ensuring data underpins our growth, trust, AI adoption and audit quality ambitions.
• Represent Audit Technology in firm-wide data governance forums and cross-capability data initiatives.
• Accountability for leading teams; providing technical, risk & compliance management, operational and quality management support; overseeing project management, budgeting and planning; senior stakeholder management; analysis and delivery of quality reports; participating in tenders or proposals; and some performance management responsibilities.

Data Governance

• Establish and operationalise a robust governance framework, ensuring critical data assets are defined, catalogued, owned and stewarded.
• Lead business-wide alignment of data roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and stewardship structures.
• Develop and maintain policies and processes for managing data throughout its lifecycle.
• Chair or oversee data governance forums, ensuring actions, risks and decisions are captured and enforced.

Data Quality

• Build and operate a data quality management capability – profiling, monitoring, controls, remediation and reporting.
• Identify and track data quality KPIs across portfolios and establish continuous improvement cycles.
• Implement automated data quality tooling and standards across Engineering and Product teams.

Data as Insight

• Drive consistent reporting, dashboards and insight capabilities to support performance, risk management and audit delivery.
• Partner with the Audit function and SMEs to translate operational and audit data into meaningful insight.
• Define the operating model for insight development, including metadata management, lineage and data interpretation standards.

Data as a Service

• Develop a scalable model for providing reusable, trusted, secure datasets, pipelines and APIs to product teams.
• Work with Architecture, Engineering and Cloud teams to operationalise data platforms such as Fabric, Informatica, Purview and Collibra.
• Establish service definitions, SLAs, demand processes and capacity models for data consumption across the portfolio.

Culture & Change

• Champion data-driven culture change, embedding stewardship, data literacy and trust in data across Audit.
• Lead education and enablement programmes to strengthen responsible data behaviours.
• Foster high-challenge, high-support ways of working, modelling KPMG values.

Performance & Risk

• Conduct maturity assessments and define improvement roadmaps across the four pillars.
• Maintain oversight of data risks, issues, non-compliance and regulatory obligations.
• Ensure data controls are aligned with audit quality and risk management expectations.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in data governance, data quality, data management or enterprise data operations.
• Experience leading multipillar data functions or horizontal data capabilities across complex organisations.
• Strong understanding of data platforms, data integration, metadata cataloguing, lineage and data quality tooling such as Informatica, MS Purview, Collibra and Fabric.
• Strong stakeholder and relationship management skills across technical and non-technical communities.
• Evidence of driving cultural and behavioural change related to data ownership and quality.
• Experience translating technical data concepts into business language.
• Strategic thinker able to balance long-term vision with practical delivery.
• Proactive, tenacious leader who can drive transformation across multiple teams and portfolios.
• Passionate advocate for trustworthy, responsible, high-quality data.

Behavioural attributes: role-model high support and high challenge, foster inclusion, empowerment, psychological safety and collaboration, actively coach and develop colleagues, and contribute to community, purpose and enjoyment across the team.

KPMG is an inclusive, equal-opportunity employer committed to fair treatment of all candidates throughout the recruitment process.