WRK digital
Data Platform Lead
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Job Title: Data Platform Lead
Location: Leeds/Hybrid (2/3 times per week onsite)
Reporting to: Chief Technology Officer
Salary: £85-90,000 + Excellent Benefits
Type: Full-Time, Permanent
The Opportunity
WRK digital is proud to partner exclusively with a well-known, high-profile organisation on a transformative data journey. This organisation is at the beginning of a significant transformation programme and is building their data capability from the ground up. This is a brand-new, foundational leadership role with the opportunity to define how data is governed, managed, and leveraged across a growing, multi-division organisation.
The Head of Data will be accountable for establishing the enterprise data strategy, defining the governance framework, and building a scalable data platform and reporting capability.
This is a deliberately hybrid role combining:
- Strategic leadership: vision, governance, prioritisation, stakeholder alignment
- Hands-on delivery: architecture, modelling, pipelines, dashboards, and platform decisions
As the first dedicated data leader in the business, success will require someone who can move at pace, bring structure to ambiguity, and partner closely with senior stakeholders and external technology providers.
Key Responsibilities
Data Strategy & Roadmap
- Define and own the enterprise data strategy aligned to business goals (growth, operational excellence, client delivery, compliance).
- Develop a phased and practical data roadmap covering:
- Data platform foundations
- KPI and reporting standardisation
- Governance and quality controls
- Analytics and AI enablement
- Establish a “single source of truth” approach for operational and performance data.
Data Platform Architecture
- Define the target-state data architecture, primarily within the Microsoft ecosystem.
- Select and implement appropriate components across:
- Data ingestion and integration
- Storage (lakehouse / warehouse patterns)
- Semantic modelling
- Reporting and self-service BI
- Governance and security tooling
- Design scalable integration patterns (ETL/ELT, APIs, orchestration).
- Develop robust data models to enable cross-division reporting and consolidated group-wide insight.
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Insight & Reporting Delivery
- Build and deliver high-impact dashboards and reporting for:
- Board and Executive reporting
- Divisional leadership and operational management
- Finance and performance functions
- Define and standardise core metrics, KPIs, and reporting definitions.
- Implement a business glossary, data dictionary, and shared KPI catalogue.
Data Governance, Quality & Trust
- Establish and embed a comprehensive data governance framework, including:
- Data ownership and stewardship models
- Classification and handling standards
- Role-based access controls
- Auditability and lineage
- Implement data quality standards, monitoring, and remediation processes.
- Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory and data privacy obligations (e.g. GDPR).
Stakeholder Partnership
- Act as the bridge between business strategy and technical execution.
- Partner closely with:
- Executive leadership
- Divisional leadership teams
- Finance, Operations, Risk and Compliance
- External managed service providers and technology partners
- Lead prioritisation of initiatives to ensure focus on high-value outcomes.
Operating Model & Capability Build
- Define the data operating model, clarifying:
- What is delivered internally vs via third parties
- What is standardised centrally vs owned locally
- Over time, build the case for and hire a small, high-performing data team.
- Maintain architectural ownership and governance while overseeing delivery through partners.
Skills & Experience
Essential Experience
- Experience in a senior data leadership role (e.g. Head of Data, Lead Data Architect, Data Engineering Lead, BI Lead).
- Proven track record of building a data platform and analytics capability from scratch in greenfield or low-maturity environments.
- Strong experience working with senior stakeholders to translate business questions into:
- Data requirements
- KPI definitions
- Dashboards and reporting products
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Technical Capability
- Strong hands-on capability across:
- Advanced SQL
- Data modelling (dimensional and semantic modelling, performance optimisation)
- ETL/ELT pipeline design and troubleshooting
- Python for transformation, automation, or pipeline development
- Strong familiarity with the Microsoft data ecosystem, ideally including:
- Azure Data Services
- Microsoft Fabric
- Azure Databricks
- Power BI (including semantic models and governance best practice)
- Data governance tooling (e.g. Purview)
- Strong understanding of:
- Data security controls
- Access models and role-based permissions
- Auditability and compliance requirements
Ways of Working
- Highly organised and delivery-focused; able to create structure in ambiguous environments.
- Comfortable operating independently and owning a function end-to-end.
- Confident prioritising effectively and pushing back on low-value reporting requests.
- Pragmatic, commercially aware, and outcome-driven.
Desirable Experience
- Experience within professional services or multi-entity organisations.
- Exposure to M&A or integration environments.
- Experience working with managed service providers and blended delivery models.
- Familiarity with regulated or compliance-heavy sectors.
- Experience enabling analytics or AI use cases.
Why This Role is Different
This is a rare opportunity to define and build a data capability from first principles. You will shape strategy, architecture, governance, and delivery in a business that recognises data as a critical enabler of growth and performance. For the right individual, this role offers genuine autonomy, visibility at executive level, and the opportunity to create lasting organisational impact.
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