Principal Data Solution Architect

About Methods:

Methods is a £100M+ IT Services Consultancy who has partnered with a range of central government departments and agencies to transform the way the public sector operates in the UK. Established over 30 years ago and UK-based, we apply our skills in transformation, delivery, and collaboration from across the Methods Group, to create end-to-end business and technical solutions that are people-centred, safe, and designed for the future.

Our human touch sets us apart from other consultancies, system integrators and software houses - with people, technology, and data at the heart of who we are, we believe in creating value and sustainability through everything we do for our clients, staff, communities, and the planet.

We support our clients in the success of their projects while working collaboratively to share skill sets and solve problems. At Methods we have fun while working hard; we are not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them.

Predominantly focused on the public-sector, Methods is now building a significant private sector client portfolio.

Methods was acquired by the Alten Group in early 2022. Alten is a global engineering firm with approximately 57,000 employees specializing in engineering and IT services.

Description

Job title: Principal Data Solution Architect

Team: Delivery

Methods is recruiting for a Principal Data Solution Architect to join our team a permanent basis.

This role will be mainly remote but require flexibility to travel to client sites, and our offices based in London, Sheffield.

What You'll Be Doing as a Principal Data Solution Architect:

• Be the senior technical authority for the programme, responsible for defining technical direction, priorities, standards and decision-making.
• Be accountable for creating and maintaining the Data Transformation Programme roadmap and ensuring all workstreams align to the target architecture and business objectives.
• Setting priorities
• Guiding technical workstreams
• Identifying incorrect or low-value activities
• Redirecting effort towards programme outcomes
• Uplift the capability of the existing team
• Mentor architects and engineers
• Establish good engineering practices
• Develop Fabric knowledge within both Methods and the customer team

• Chair or lead: Architecture reviews. Design authorities, Technical governance forums and Data platform standards reviews
• Advocate the business benefit of data standards, championing and governing those standards across projects and the organisation

• Demonstrate an overall perspective on business issues and activities, determining patterns, standards, policies, roadmaps and vision statements

• Make and guide effective decisions, explaining clearly how decisions have been reached and resolving technical disputes across varying levels of complexity and risk

• Communicate effectively across organisational, technical and political boundaries, making complex technical information accessible for non-technical audiences

• Design how to expose data from systems (APIs, real-time streams), link data from multiple systems, and deliver modern data services

• Ensure that risks associated with deployment are adequately understood and documented

• Design end-to-end data solutions from requirements through implementation, including technical documentation and architecture blueprints

• Lead complex data migration projects from legacy systems to modern cloud-native platforms

• Evaluate and recommend appropriate technologies across the modern data stack to meet specific client needs

Your Impact:

• Enable transformative business decisions through robust, scalable data architectures

• Drive adoption of modern data platforms and AI-enabled analytics solutions

• Establish technical standards and architectural patterns that ensure quality, security, and maintainability

• Help cultivate a data-driven culture within client organisations and internally

• Deliver architectures that seamlessly integrate traditional and modern data systems

Requirements

You Will Demonstrate:

• Deep knowledge of Fabric architecture, governance, OneLake, Real-Time Intelligence, Data Engineering, Warehousing and Power BI integration
• Capability to influence senior stakeholders, programme sponsors and project boards.
• Ability to communicate technical decisions to non-technical executives and secure agreement on technical direction.
• Deep knowledge of the Azure data stack (Azure SQL Server, CosmosDB, Azure Data Factory, Purview, Synapse, Event Hub, Azure Databricks/Fabric)

• Extensive data modelling experience: both normalised relational models and de-normalised Star Schema/dimensional models

• Excellent relational database design skills with expertise in diagnosing and optimising performance across SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and cloud databases

• Proven track record with complex data migration projects (terabyte+ datasets, multiple legacy source systems, structures and unstructured data)

• Proficiency with Parquet/Delta Lake or other modern data storage formats

• Experience with streaming architectures using Kafka, Event Hubs, or Kinesis for real-time data processing

• Knowledge of data architectures supporting AI/ML workloads, including vector databases, feature stores and MLOps pipelines

• Experience processing and managing unstructured data types (text, images, logs, sensor data)

• Understanding of Lambda and Kappa architectural patterns and when to apply each

You May Also Have:

• Exposure to high-performing, low latency or large volume data systems

• Knowledge of and/or experience with Government Digital Service practices across Discovery/Alpha/Beta/Live phases

• Understanding of vector databases and similarity search for AI applications

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code and modern DevOps practices

• Knowledge of how to design and analyse operational logs for data processing, and triage incidents

• Awareness of advances in AI technologies, data services, and architectural practices

• Industry specialisation in specific sectors (Engineering, Manufacturing, Healthcare etc.)

• Public sector or defence experience

• Understanding of data mesh or data fabric architectural approaches

• Relevant industry certifications such as TOGAF 9, CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional), or Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)

Security Clearance:

UKSV (United Kingdom Security Vetting) clearance is required for this role, with Security Check (SC) as the minimum standard, either already held or with a willingness to undergo the process. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS); details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website GOV.UK - Government baseline personnel security standard. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected. Details of this will be discussed with you at interview.

Benefits

Working at Methods:

Methods exists to improve society by helping people make better decisions with data. Combining passionate people, sector-specific insight, and technical excellence to provide our customers an end-to-end data service.

We use a collaborative, creative and user centric approach to data to do good and solve difficult problems. Ensuring that our outputs are transparent, robust, and transformative. We value discussion and debate as part of our approach. We will question assumptions, ambition, and process - but do so with respect and humility.

We relish difficult problems, and overcome them with innovation, creativity, and technical freedom to help us design optimum solutions. Ethics, privacy, and quality are at the heart of our work, and we will not sacrifice these for outcomes.

We treat data with respect and use it only for the right purpose. Our people are positive, dedicated, and relentless. Data is a vast topic, but we strive for interactions that are engaging, informative and fun in equal measure. But maintain a steely focus on outcomes and delivering quality products for our customers.

We are passionate about our people; we want out colleagues to develop the things they are good at and enjoy.

By joining us you can expect

• Autonomy to develop and grow your skills and experience

• Be part of exciting project work that is making a difference in society

• Strong, inspiring, and thought-provoking leadership

• A supportive and collaborative environment

As well as this, we offer:

• Development access to LinkedIn Learning, a management development programme and training

• Wellness 24/7 Confidential employee assistance programme

• Social - office parties, pizza Friday and commitment to charitable causes

• Time off - 25 days of annual leave a year, plus bank holidays, with the option to buy 10 extra days each year

• Volunteering - 2 paid days per year to volunteer in our local communities or within a charity organisation

• Pension Salary Exchange Scheme with 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution
• Life Assurance of 4 times base salary

• Private Medical Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependents included)

• Worldwide Travel Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependents included)