Data Architect

Location: Newcastle

Compensation: Up to £88,000 / year

Department: [SBSS] Enterprise Data Management

Somerset Bridge Group is one of the UK’s fastest‑growing insurance businesses, supporting brands such as GoSkippy and Vavista. With offices in Bristol, Newcastle and Gibraltar, we provide straightforward motor insurance to over 740,000 customers each year, backed by a friendly, customer‑focused team. We’re proud of our award‑winning success – Personal Lines Broker of the Year, MGA of the Year and Digital Initiative of the Year – reflecting our commitment to innovation and excellent service. Alongside continued growth, we’re dedicated to making a positive impact, having planted more than 419,000 trees through our environmental partnership with Vavista.

As a Data Architect at Somerset Bridge Group, you’ll play a key role in shaping how data is designed, managed and used across the business. You’ll set the architectural direction for our data estate — from the point data first lands on the platform, through the Bronze, Silver and Gold layers of our Medallion Architecture, and all the way to analytics, AI and self‑service reporting. Working within the Microsoft Azure and Databricks ecosystem, you’ll help build a data platform that’s scalable, flexible and built to last. Your work will directly support high‑impact use cases, including advanced analytics, pricing models, AI/ML solutions and regulatory reporting — ensuring teams across the business can trust and use data with confidence.

You’ll collaborate closely with colleagues in Data Engineering, Data Science, Pricing, Platform Engineering and MLOps, acting as a trusted partner and technical authority. Together, you’ll define clear standards for how data is structured, governed and consumed, helping the organisation grow without unnecessary complexity or fragmentation. This is a great opportunity for someone who enjoys balancing strategic thinking with hands‑on collaboration — influencing how data is used across the organisation as Somerset Bridge Group continues its journey towards its Top 5 in 5 ambition.

Responsibilities

• Data Architecture & Modelling: Define and own the architectural principles, standards and policies governing SBG's data estate from the landing zone through to the Gold layer. Design and govern the Medallion Architecture (Bronze / Silver / Gold), ensuring every layer is built for analytics, AI/ML and self‑service consumption. Own data modelling standards — conceptual, logical and physical — and ensure models are fit for both regulatory reporting and AI-driven insight. Define Unity Catalog structure, metadata standards and data lineage governance across the estate.
• Data Ingestion & Processing: Define ingestion standards and data contracts for data arriving from the landing zone into the Bronze layer, working in partnership with the Development and Application Management team. Design and optimise ETL/ELT pipeline frameworks using Databricks, Delta Lake and Azure Data Factory. Ensure Silver and Gold layer data products are fit for purpose for analytics, pricing, AI and ML model consumption. Optimise data pipelines for efficiency, cost‑effectiveness and high performance, leveraging Databricks for big data processing and machine learning.
• Governance & Standards: Act as the architectural authority for the data estate — reviewing designs, enforcing standards and preventing platform fragmentation as SBG scales. Ensure all data architecture decisions align with regulatory requirements — FCA, GDPR, Solvency II, IFRS 17 and BCBS 239. Define and maintain data architecture policies and guidelines ensuring long‑term scalability and sustainability.
• Analytics & AI Enablement: Design the Gold layer to ensure data products are structured, documented and accessible for self‑service analytics and AI/ML model consumption. Collaborate with ML Ops and Data Science teams to define data product standards and feature engineering patterns. Evaluate and lead adoption of emerging Azure and Databricks capabilities — including Microsoft Fabric, OneLake and DirectLake — where they advance the data architecture. Drive innovation by evaluating and implementing emerging cloud‑based data technologies to enhance SBG's competitive advantage.
• Risk & Regulatory: Proactively identify, manage and mitigate architectural and data risks encountered in day‑to‑day delivery. Act with integrity, adhering to FCA regulatory frameworks and ensuring best possible outcomes for customers.

Qualifications

• Strong stakeholder management across business, IT and compliance teams.
• Excellent communication, collaboration and influencing skills at all levels of an organisation.
• Experience leading data architecture and engineering teams in an enterprise environment.
• Ability to define and implement a data strategy aligned with business objectives.
• Proven track record of delivering enterprise‑scale data solutions with a focus on performance, security and scalability.
• Experience in regulated financial services, ensuring compliance with industry standards.
• Deep expertise in data modelling — conceptual, logical and physical.
• Data warehousing and data lake architecture for high‑performance analytics.
• ETL/ELT pipeline development and optimisation to support large‑scale data processing.
• Data integration across structured and unstructured sources, ensuring high availability.
• Metadata management and governance to maintain data quality and lineage.
• Experience defining data contracts and ingestion standards between source delivery teams and the data estate.
• Deep expertise in Microsoft Azure cloud services — ADF, ADLS, Synapse, Purview.
• Databricks — Delta Lake architecture, optimisation and advanced data processing.
• Apache Spark for large‑scale distributed computing and performance tuning.
• Microsoft Fabric — OneLake and DirectLake integration.
• Azure Synapse Analytics for enterprise‑scale data warehousing.
• Infrastructure‑as‑Code (Terraform or Azure Bicep) to automate cloud deployments.
• CI/CD pipelines with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions for automated deployment of data pipelines.
• MLOps best practices — MLflow, Databricks Model Serving, Feature Store.
• Knowledge of IFRS 17, BCBS 239, UK Data Protection Act and Solvency II compliance.
• Experience with pricing models, claims processing and fraud detection in the insurance sector.
• Strong problem‑solving skills and ability to translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Ability to document and present complex data architectures to technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

Benefits

• Hybrid working – 2 days in the office and 3 days working from home
• 25 days annual leave, rising to 27 days over 2 years’ service and 30 days after 5 years’ service. Plus bank holidays!
• Discretionary annual bonus
• Pension scheme – 5% employee, 6% employer
• Flexible working – we will always consider applications for those who require less than the advertised hours
• Flexi-time
• Healthcare Cash Plan – claim cashback on a variety of everyday healthcare costs
• Electric vehicle – salary sacrifice scheme
• 100’s of exclusive retailer discounts
• Professional wellbeing, health & fitness app - Wrkit
• Enhanced parental leave, including time off for IVF appointments
• Religious bank holidays – if you don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, you can use these annual leave days on other occasions throughout the year.
• Life Assurance – 4 times your salary
• 25% Car Insurance Discount
• 20% Travel Insurance Discount
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Employee Referral Scheme
• Community support day