Principal Data Architect

Location: London, gb

Company Description

Experian is a global data and technology company, powering opportunities for people and businesses around the world. We operate across a range of markets, from financial services to healthcare, automotive, agribusiness, insurance, and many more. Experian invests in people and new advanced technologies to unlock the power of data. We have an amazing team of 25,200 people in 32 countries. 

Job Description

We are seeking a Principal Data Architect to serve as the leading technical authority for data architecture across our UK Consumer business.

This is a senior individual contributor role for a highly experienced architect who combines deep technical expertise with strong ownership, commercial pragmatism and the ability to influence across multiple teams. This is a hands-on architecture role being actively engaged from strategy and design through implementation, adoption and optimisation, helping teams make confident decisions and deliver against a shared architectural vision.

You will define the strategic direction for our data ecosystem, shaping the target-state architecture while creating a practical roadmap from today's environment. Working across cloud platforms, data products, analytics, AI and operational systems, you will ensure our architecture enables innovation, scalability, governance and business value.

Key Responsibilities

1. Own the current-state, target-state and transition architecture for the enterprise data ecosystem.
2. Define end-to-end architecture across data ingestion, transformation, storage, activation, analytics, AI and data products.
3. Translate business and product objectives into scalable, secure and maintainable architectural solutions.
4. Establish architecture principles, standards, reference patterns and governance frameworks that enable engineering teams to deliver efficiently.
5. Lead data modelling, data governance and standards for quality, lineage, metadata, ownership and lifecycle management.
6. Provide technical leadership across cloud data platforms and technologies including Snowflake, AWS and associated integration and orchestration tooling.
7. Define and evolve patterns for batch, real-time, event-driven and API-based data architectures.
8. Lead complex transformation initiatives including cloud migrations, platform modernisation, data product adoption and legacy decommissioning.
9. Ensure architecture decisions balance scalability, resilience, security, observability, performance and cost efficiency.
10. Influence and mentor engineers, architects and technical leaders while building strong alignment across UK and international teams.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in Data Architecture, Data Engineering or Data Platform Architecture within large, complex organisations.
• Proven success operating at Principal, Lead Architect or equivalent senior architecture level across multiple domains and teams.
• Deep expertise in modern cloud data platforms, particularly AWS, Snowflake or comparable technologies.
• Strong experience designing large-scale batch, streaming, event-driven and API-based data architectures.
• Advanced knowledge of conceptual, logical and physical data modelling and enterprise data design.
• Hands-on experience with modern data tooling such as dbt, Snowplow, Fivetran, orchestration platforms or equivalent technologies.
• Experience building and governing data products, self-service platforms and domain-oriented data architectures, with a strong understanding of Data Mesh and federated governance principles.
• Proven experience delivering large-scale data transformations, including cloud migrations, platform modernisation, legacy system retirement and operating model change.
• Strong understanding of data security, privacy, governance, data quality, metadata, lineage, observability and data protection by design.
• Knowledge of the data foundations required for advanced analytics, personalisation, machine learning and Generative AI, combined with excellent stakeholder management, communication and influencing skills.

Preferred Experience

• Telecommunications, digital products, e-commerce or large-scale consumer-facing environments.

Additional Information

Benefits package includes:

• Hybrid working - 40% office based
• Great compensation package and discretionary bonus
• Core benefits include Pension, Bupa healthcare, Sharesave Scheme and more
• 25 days annual leave with 8 bank holidays and 3 volunteering days. You can purchase additional annual leave.

Our uniqueness is that we celebrate yours. Experian's people first, inclusive and purpose driven culture is multi award-winning; World's Best Workplaces™ 2025 (Fortune Global Top 25), Great Place To Work™ in 26 countries to name a few. Check out Experian Life on social or explore our Careers Site to understand why. Experian is also proud to be an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know at the earliest opportunity.

Recruitment Fraud Awareness - Experian's recruitment process is conducted only through authorised channels. Recruitment communications will only be sent from an @experian.com email address. Experian will never ask candidates to make any payment as part of an application, interview, assessment, onboarding, or recruitment process. To apply for roles or verify opportunities, please visit experian.com/careers

Grade: C/EB7

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