Data Architect
Location: Reading, United Kingdom
Company: Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust
Salary: £64,455 – £74,896 per annum (Yearly)
Contract: Permanent – Full time 37.5 hours per week
Job reference: 193-7611855COR
Closing date: 10/12/2025 23:59
Job Overview
The Data Architect is a key member of the Digital Data & Technology (DDaT) team, adding value for our patients through improving and developing digital services across the Trust and wider health and care system.
Ensure the Data Warehouse and BI teams are an effective component of the Trust's DDaT target operating model, working alongside others, delivering continuous overall improvement. The Data Architect is responsible for teams delivering accurate and timely datasets and analytics to support clinical services, in line with Trust priorities. They will also pro‑actively review new and emerging technologies and develop business cases for these technologies where relevant.
Main Responsibilities
- Provide leadership and senior specialist technical support for the existing set of data applications in SQL server, Exasol, Tableau, Azure.
- Ensure the data warehouse and BI teams are kept abreast of current technologies in their respective spaces; engender an understanding of current and future opportunities.
- Ensure the Data Warehouse and BI team deliver accurate and timely datasets to support clinical operational services, research and clinical analytics in line with Trust priorities, that support direct care delivery and lead to research funding.
- Specify, develop and maintain technical standard operating procedures used by the Data Warehouse and BI teams and ensure they are followed.
- Act as senior point of contact to solve user and system problems.
- Lead on projects with the analytics and other digital colleagues to ensure that the Trust's requirements are met and enable the production of analysis that helps the Trust to understand and improve quality and safety of care.
- Advise key internal customers/stakeholders on management and storage of datasets and analysis tools available to them.
- Assist in managing the secure data environment quality function where data quality issues (e.g. inconsistency, referential integrity, missing data) are identified from investigations of data within the warehouse; maintaining an Issue log and tracking issues to resolution.
Detailed Job Description And Main Responsibilities
- Advise key internal customers/stakeholders on management and storage of datasets and analysis tools available to them.
- Assist in managing the secure data environment quality function where data quality issues (e.g. inconsistency, referential integrity, missing data) are identified from investigations of data within the warehouse; maintaining an Issue log whereby issues are logged and tracked through to resolution.
- Overall responsibility for coordinating the logging of key data quality problems with the internal back office and system suppliers and oversee the resolution of the issues by working together with these internal and external parties.
- Support the maintenance and improvement of the secure data environment as a system, including relevant system documentation. Maintain and monitor the secure data environment such that it is dependable, reliable, timely and has a robust disaster recovery mechanism in place.
Person Specification
Essential criteria
- Data Lakes, Lakehouse, and Data Warehouses
Desirable criteria
- Design and maintain canonical data models (conceptual, logical, and physical) for structured, semi‑structured data
Develop architectural strategies, blueprints for hybrid and cloud‑native solutions
Essential criteria
- Leveraging AWS, Azure, or GCP
Desirable criteria
- Extensive experience in developing architectural strategies, blueprints for hybrid and cloud‑native solutions
ELT/ETL Frameworks & Pipelines
Essential criteria
- Develop robust ELT/ETL pipelines using tools like Apache Airflow, DBT, AWS Glue, Azure Data Factory, or Kafka Connect.
Desirable criteria
- Optimize data transformations for performance, reusability, and modular design (e.g., using SQL/Scala/Python).
Sponsorship
We are an approved sponsoring organisation. Applications will be considered from applicants requiring sponsorship alongside all other applications. Please be aware, not all roles are eligible for sponsorship.
Staff Benefits
- Flexible working opportunities and a strong emphasis on your work, life balance
- Annual leave – 27 days for new starters, plus bank holidays. Increasing to 29 days after 5 years and 33 days after 10 years NHS service. Pro rata for part‑time staff
- NHS pension scheme
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Money Advice Service
- Generous maternity, paternity and adoption leave for eligible staff
- On‑site nursery (based at RBH)
- Full educational library services
- Cycle to work scheme, lockable storage for cycles
- Bus to work scheme
- Excellent rail and bus links
- A huge range of Health Service Discounts at hundreds of big brands from holidays to gadgets and restaurants to retail.
Additional Information
After applying via NHS Jobs, your submitted application will be imported into our preferred third‑party recruitment system (TRAC). All subsequent information regarding your application will be generated from apps.trac.jobs. You will not be able to track the progress of your application or receive messages through the NHS Jobs website, and furthermore, that as an employer, we will not be able to respond to any e‑mails sent to us via the NHS Jobs website.
By applying for this post you are agreeing to Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust transferring the information contained in this application to its preferred applicant management system. If you are appointed to a post information will also be transferred into the national NHS Electronic Staff Records system.
Appointment to any position is conditional on the satisfactory completion of the core NHS Employment Checks Standards. Information disclosed in your application will be checked and any offer of appointment may be withdrawn if you knowingly withhold information or provide false or misleading information. All new appointments to the Trust, with the exception of executive positions, are subject to a 6‑month probationary period.
The Trust may close any vacancy prior to the advertised closing date due to the high level of responses we receive for some of our vacancies.
Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust is committed to improving the health of its staff, patients and the wider community by providing a smoke‑free environment. A smoke‑free policy is in operation and smoking is not permitted on any of the Trust's sites.
The Trust is also committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable adults and requires all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We follow safe recruitment practices to protect children, young people and vulnerable adults.
Applicant requirements: The postholder will have access to vulnerable people in the course of their normal duties and as such this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2020 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service to check for any previous criminal convictions.
