Data Architect

Data Architect – Permanent - £80k - £90K

Join us and be part of a mission-driven, independent publisher. You’ll work with a diverse group of people who share a passion for empowering researchers, educators, and institutions to shape the future.

Sage is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources with a growing range of technologies to enable discovery, access, and engagement. Believing that research and education are critical in shaping society, Sara Miller McCune founded Sage in 1965. Today, we are controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining our independence and mission indefinitely.

Our guaranteed independence means we’re free to:

- Do more – supporting an equitable academic future, furthering disciplines that drive social change, and helping social and behavioural science make an impact

- Work together – building lasting relationships, championing diverse perspectives, and co-creating resources to transform teaching and learning

- Think long-term – experimenting, taking risks, and investing in new ideas

This is a new role, and you'll be Sage's first dedicated Data Architect. You'll play a key role in shaping how data is designed, governed and used across Sage. Working closely with colleagues across Technology, Product and the wider business, you'll turn enterprise architecture strategy into practical data solutions that support effective delivery, trusted reporting and better decision-making.

You'll sit within our Architecture & Innovation group, with enterprise architects, data scientists and engineers, and partner with product and governance colleagues across the business to solve complex data challenges and establish consistent, secure and reusable approaches. The role combines technical expertise with partnership and influence, helping delivery teams make sound architectural decisions while evolving Sage's data capabilities.

This is an opportunity to have a meaningful impact on our data landscape, provide technical leadership and help build the standards and foundations that enable data to be used confidently across the organization.

To lead the design of Sage's data architecture within the direction set by enterprise architecture, turning departmental technology plans into practical data models, integration patterns and reference designs that delivery teams complete. To act as the data architecture specialist for the department, resolving complex data design problems and making the trade-offs that determine how data is structured, moved, governed and consumed. To guide delivery teams and technical colleagues in applying agreed data standards, improving the consistency, reusability and security of data solutions across the business. Ensure that investment in data and analytics capability produces trusted, well-governed data for reporting and decision making.

Your New Role:

- Lead the design and maintenance of Sage's data models, integration patterns and reference designs, translating enterprise architecture direction into practical designs that delivery teams complete.

- Develop and maintain the data architecture standards, patterns and guidance for the department, and guide teams in applying them so that data solutions are consistent, reusable and secure.

- Resolve complex data design problems where requirements are unclear or collaborator needs conflict, exercising judgement within agreed architectural principles and advancing only where direction is genuinely absent.

- Assess the data and integration requirements of new initiatives and recommend architectural options with the trade-offs, dependencies, risks and costs made explicit, so that leadership can make informed investment decisions.

- Lead the data architecture element of the architectural review process, examining proposed designs to determine their quality and direction and resolving data-related issues before they reach delivery.

- Plan and drive the delivery of data architecture initiatives, organising the specialist input and technical resource required to move the department toward its agreed target state.

- Define the lineage, metadata and data quality requirements within architectural designs and liaise with governance and stewardship colleagues, so that data used for reporting and analytics is traceable and trusted.

- Ensure security, privacy and regulatory requirements are designed into the data architecture from the outset, meeting Sage's data handling and retention obligations across the global locations in which it operates.

- Build relationships across Technology, Product and business functions and influence data design decisions through evidence, negotiation and consensus rather than formal authority.

- Act as the point of technical guidance on data architecture, coaching engineers, analysts and less experienced architects to raise data design capability across the department and maintaining current knowledge of developments in data architecture practice.

• Significant experience of data architecture design in a multi-system enterprise environment, including conceptual, logical and physical data modelling.
• Strong working knowledge of operational and analytical data design approaches, including warehouse, lake, relational and non-relational storage on cloud-hosted platforms, with the ability to select between them on technical merit.
• Demonstrable experience of defining architectural standards and patterns and guiding delivery teams to apply them consistently.
• Solid understanding of data governance, data quality, security, privacy and regulatory requirements, and of how these are designed into architecture.
• Demonstrable experience of producing architectural artefacts, diagrams and documentation that are understood by both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to assimilate complex or incomplete information and make reasoned, defensible architectural recommendations.
• Demonstrable experience of influencing technical decisions across teams and functions without direct authority, including building consensus with senior collaborators.
• Demonstrable ability to coach and/or mentor others.
• A recognised data or enterprise architecture qualification, or equivalent applied expertise, with evidence of continuous professional learning and of coaching others in data design.

We’re a Disability Confident Employer (Level 1). If you’d like to apply under this scheme, please let us know in your application.

We’re committed to making our recruitment process accessible and inclusive. If you’d like to request reasonable adjustments, please email humanresources@sagepub.co.uk. Please note we only accept applications via email if an adjustment has been agreed.

Closing date for applications: October 10, 2026

To ensure we can give each application the attention it deserves, we may consider bringing the closing date forward. Therefore, we encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to ensure it is considered.