Data Architect

Location: DMGT HQ - High Street Kensington, London
Position: Permanent

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Data Architect to define and govern the data architecture across our technology estate — spanning cloud platforms (AWS and GCP), hosted data centres, and on-premises systems. This role is critical during a period of significant technology transformation: the successful candidate will map, optimise, and design data flows across a complex multi-environment estate; set and enforce data architecture standards; ensure that every project making a material change to our technology or data landscape is optimally designed and documented; and represent those standards at the Technical Design Authority (TDA). The role sits within the Architecture and Integration team and reports directly to the Enterprise Architect.

Main Responsibilities

• Data Flow Mapping & Optimisation: Produce comprehensive, accurate maps of current-state data flows across the full estate — cloud (AWS, GCP), hosted data centres, and on-premises systems. Identify redundancy, latency, and quality issues in existing flows and define target-state designs that are efficient, resilient, and fit for a cloud-first future.

• Data Architecture Standards & Governance: Define, document, and maintain data architecture standards, patterns, and principles for DMG Media. Ensure these standards are consistently applied across all projects and platforms, and act as the authoritative data architecture voice at the Technical Design Authority (TDA).

• Project Engagement & Design Assurance: Be engaged on all projects that fundamentally change the technology or data estate — from early discovery through to delivery. Ensure that any new capability, platform, or integration is optimally designed, architecture-reviewed, and documented before build commences.

• Multi-Environment Architecture: Design and govern data architecture across a hybrid estate that spans AWS, GCP, hosted data centres, and legacy on-premises systems. Ensure data flows, pipelines, and platform designs work coherently across all environments, with clear ownership of cross-environment patterns and data contracts.

• Cloud Platform Design: Lead the data platform architecture across the cloud estate, designing scalable lakehouse patterns, real-time and batch pipeline architectures suitable for AI/ML infrastructure.

Person Specification

• Data architecture expertise across multi-environment estates: proven experience designing and governing data architectures that span cloud, hosted data centre, and on-premises environments simultaneously — not cloud-only.
  Multi-cloud platform depth (AWS and GCP): hands-on experience with data services across one or both of AWS (Redshift, Glue, S3 / Lake Formation, MSK, RDS) and GCP (BigQuery, Dataflow, Pub/Sub, Cloud Composer).
• Data flow mapping and optimisation: demonstrable experience producing current-state data flow documentation, identifying inefficiencies and risks in existing pipelines, and designing optimised target-state flows. Comfortable working at both the conceptual and technical levels.
• Data architecture standards and governance: experience defining, documenting, and enforcing data architecture standards, design patterns, and principles at an enterprise level. Prior involvement in architecture governance forums (TDA, ARB, or equivalent) essential.
• AI and ML platform architecture: experience designing AI/ML data infrastructure — including feature stores, model training pipelines, inference serving, and GenAI / RAG architectures grounded in proprietary content.
• Lakehouse and modern data platform design: strong knowledge of open table formats (Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake), zone architecture (landing, cleansed, curated), streaming and batch pipeline patterns, and data quality frameworks.
• Project engagement and design assurance: able to engage early in the project lifecycle, translate business and technical requirements into architecture decisions, and produce governance-quality documentation (HLDs, LLDs, data flow diagrams, integration designs).
• Strong stakeholder management: ability to communicate clearly with both technical teams and senior non-technical stakeholders; able to translate complex data architecture concepts into measurable business outcomes and defensible design decisions.

Required Competencies

• Ability to operate across the full spectrum of architecture detail — from enterprise-level data strategy and standards through to the specifics of pipeline design and platform configuration.
• Proactive identification of data architecture risk, technical debt, and optimisation opportunities across the estate, including existing flows.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear, professional architecture documentation and present confidently at governance forums.
• A collaborative approach to design — working with engineering, product, and editorial teams to arrive at practical, implementable architecture decisions rather than ideal-state designs that cannot be delivered.
• Intellectual rigour and the ability to hold a considered architecture position under challenge, while remaining open to new information.
• Awareness of data governance, data quality, and responsible AI principles, and a commitment to embedding these into architecture decisions by design rather than retrospectively.
  

Preferred Skills

• Experience in digital media, news publishing, or a high-traffic consumer internet business — familiarity with editorial workflows, CMS platforms, real-time audience analytics, and subscription platform data is highly valued.
• Oracle database modernisation experience — assessment of RAC/Data Guard estates and migration to cloud-managed alternatives (RDS, Aurora PostgreSQL, ODB@AWS) is directly relevant to live workstreams at DMG Media.
• Cloud migration programme experience — landing zone design, application workload assessment, and migration sequencing across a complex on-premises estate.
• Knowledge of identity, consent management, and GDPR-compliant data architecture patterns in a consumer media context.
• AWS Certified Data Analytics, AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty, or GCP Professional Data Engineer / ML Engineer certification.
• Experience with data mesh or data product thinking at enterprise scale.

The Maturity of the Data Architecture across the organisation will be the primary measure of success, however more detailed performance of the role will be assessed / measured by:

• Development of a Data platform road map and demonstrable execution.
• Completeness and accuracy of current-state data flow maps across cloud, hosted, and on-premises environments, delivered within agreed timescales.
• Adoption of data architecture standards across all new and materially changed platforms and projects — measured through TDA review outcomes.
• Quality and timeliness of architecture documentation produced for projects engaging the role — assessed through peer review and project delivery outcomes.
• Successful delivery of target-state data flow designs for priority programmes.
• Effectiveness of data architecture representation at the Technical Design Authority — evidenced by decisions made, standards enforced, and risks identified at design stage.

Package Description

Our benefits package increases the longer you’ve been with us. Here’s what to expect:

• 25 days’ holiday (increasing by 1 per year up to a total of 30)
• Pension plan and life cover
• Discounts on online shopping, dining cards and vouchers, and access to our Employee Assistance Programme
• Onsite gym, subsidised canteen and onsite nurse and GP clinics

Plus much more...

About Us

dmg media maintains an unwavering commitment to uncovering the stories that matter most. Its brands Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Metro, The i Paper, MailOnline, and Mail+reach more than 9 million people daily in the UK.
Globally, dmg media’s brands reach 160 million unique browsers every month across its domains and apps.*

Its global newsroom of journalists, formidable story-getting power, and breadth of content formats, delivers highly engaging, trusted content to loyal and new audiences, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Mail brand reaches three in five Brits every month and is officially the best-read, most recognised, most engaged newsbrand in the country. It is the largest news publisher on TikTok with over 28 million total followers and nearly 45 billion views** in the past year.

*GA Sept 2024 **March 2024 - Feb 2025 inclusive

Our Commitment

We are committed to increasing diversity and maintaining an inclusive workplace culture. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their ethnicity, race, gender, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability.

We are Disability Confident Committed. Please let us know if you require any recruitment documentation in other formats or if you require reasonable adjustments to be made during the recruitment process. Please be assured that any such information will be held separately to your recruitment application and will not be considered as part of the selection process.