Head of Data Governance and Data Architecture

Location: Bristol; London Borough of Tower Hamlets, UK; Leeds, UK; Manchester, UK; Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Sheffield, UK

Salary: 73,092 per year

Employment: Flexible

Category: Business Intelligence

Posted: 2026-08-29

Valid to: 2026-09-15

Employer: HM Revenue and Customs

Job summary

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it’s really like to work at HMRC. This role is part of HMRC Valuation Office, formerly known as the Valuation Office Agency. We have recently integrated into HMRC. HMRC Valuation Office (VO) are the public sector’s property valuation experts and advisers with a vision to be a world-leading provider of public sector valuations. Our work is vital to the collection of over 60 billion of revenue which goes back into communities, touching every citizen and every business across England and Wales.

Data sits at the heart of everything we do with the use of data woven throughout the operation of the business. The need to strengthen the VO’s data maturity across the lifecycle of our enterprise-wide data is now crucial to being able to maximise the trust, confidence and value in our property data. As we continue our journey towards becoming a world-leading provider of public sector valuations, ensuring the integrity, quality and effective use of the organisation’s data is key to the success of this ambition. As such this role provides you with a fantastic opportunity to shape and drive data culture and data maturity across the organisation.

Role Overview

The Head of Data Governance and Architecture is a leadership role that requires organisation-wide strategic thinking. You will implement our Data Strategy ensuring that new ways of working are integrated into teams across the entire organisation to better manage our data and oversee the design of organisation data architecture and data models. Sitting within the Information, Data and Analysis (ID&A) Division, your work will be fundamental to helping HMRC Valuation Office operate efficiently and effectively, both now and as we look towards our longer-term ambitions. We have a vision of unleashing innovation and bold plans to unlock the value of the data in the VO and across the public sector. Your role will be pivotal in making our vision a reality through overseeing development of our data architecture, data models, and data governance while leading the delivery of our new ambitious Data Strategy that drives VO in becoming a world-leading provider of public sector valuations.

Data Architecture and Governance is a diverse multi-disciplinary team at the heart of VO transformation supporting the NextGen Rating programme and the delivery of our Data Strategy. You will work on some of the most fascinating challenges and business problems in the civil service. Importantly your work supports communities across the nation, and you’ll be driving real change across the public sector.

Key responsibilities

• Sets the vision for the organisation’s use of data.
• Lead the VO’s data architecture, data governance, ownership and stewardship model, ensuring our data is trusted, secure, high-quality, discoverable and transparently managed.
• Build senior-level engagement and commitment to data-led change, influencing leaders and stakeholders across VO, HMRC and wider government to adopt consistent data architecture and governance practices and to recognise data as a strategic asset.
• Set the strategic direction for data governance across VO, ensuring clear principles, standards, guardrails and decision-making routes are in place to support the delivery of the VO Data Strategy, HMRC Enterprise Data Strategy and wider government data ambitions.
• Lead the design of VO’s data architecture, establishing enterprise data models and architectural standards that support business priorities and transformation programmes.
• Provide senior architectural assurance across VO and major transformation programmes, ensuring solutions are aligned with architectural and data modelling standards, strategic objectives and long-term business needs.
• Lead the VO’s data governance framework, embedding clear accountability for data ownership, stewardship, quality, access controls and metadata to ensure data is effectively managed across the organisation.
• Drive delivery of the Data Strategy implementation plan, including the data maturity programme, ensuring progress is measurable, risks and dependencies are actively managed, and improvements are embedded into business-as-usual ways of working.
• Lead and develop a high-performing specialist team, including direct line management of four team leaders and oversight of a wider team of around 12 colleagues, building capability, professional standards, resilience and an inclusive team culture.
• Act as a senior member of the ID&A leadership team, contributing to directorate-wide strategy, planning, prioritisation and delivery, and deputising for the Deputy Director of Information, Data and Analysis where required.
• Champion VO’s data architecture and governance approach externally, collaborating with HMRC, cross-government partners and professional communities to share best practice, influence standards and ensure VO’s approach is aligned with wider public sector direction.

Person specification

We are looking for a passionate and collaborative leader who can engage senior stakeholders, build trust and drive data-led change across a complex organisation. You will be an excellent communicator with strong relationship-building skills, able to inspire high-performing teams, foster an inclusive culture, and navigate competing priorities with confidence. Strategic, resilient and credible, you will champion a shared vision for data and collaborate effectively across the organisation.

Essential Requirements

• Proven ability to set and deliver a strategic vision for data-led change, securing senior-level buy-in and engaging internal and external stakeholders to embrace change across an organisation.
• Strong understanding of data governance, ability to define the data governance strategy for the organisation and connect it with the wider organisational strategy.
• Strong understanding of data architecture, data trends and experience of enhancing data maturity within a fast paced, dynamic delivery organisation.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, including presenting expert subject matter, influencing stakeholders, briefing senior management and motivating staff.
• Profound understanding of how information and data are used to support delivery of business outcomes.
• Resilience in managing a range of conflicting priorities, often at pace, as the role can be pressurised and priorities varied.
• A visible, enabling leadership style, championing inclusion and collaboration and promoting a high-performance culture.

Desirable Requirements

• Experience of developing and delivering a data strategy or enterprise data improvement programme.
• Understanding and experience of geospatial information sources, how they are acquired, managed, assessed and exploited.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of 73,092, HM Revenue and Customs contributes 21,174 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs. We offer a generous leave allowance that starts at 25 days, increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days and a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.