Burberry Senior Data Architect

About Burberry

Burberry Limited, a quintessentially British luxury fashion house, is renowned for its innovative designs and commitment to quality. As part of the global luxury conglomerate, Burberry offers a dynamic and inclusive work environment where creativity and excellence are at the forefront. The company is dedicated to fostering a culture that encourages diversity and sustainability, making it a leader in the luxury industry.

Role & Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end data architecture for complex, cross-domain programmes and products, translating business outcomes and strategic roadmaps into coherent designs that delivery teams can implement.
• Own data architecture for major change initiatives, shaping current-, transition- and target-state architectures across source systems, operational stores, Databricks, and downstream analytical and consumption layers.
• Provide senior design authority on data architecture decisions, reviewing and challenging Data Architects, engineering teams, Solution Architects, system integrators and vendors when architectural quality, scalability, security or long-term fit is at risk.
• Lead the definition and alignment of domain and cross-domain conceptual, logical and physical data models for core domains including Product, Customer, Merchandise, Sales, Inventory, Supply Chain, Finance and People.
• Define authoritative sources, system-of-record boundaries, master and reference data relationships, ownership points and critical information flows to ensure consistent representation of business concepts across products, platforms and channels.
• Shape architecture for reusable data products and analytical capabilities across the modern data estate, including lakehouse, curated data layers, semantic structures and data assets for reporting, analytics and AI.
• Set and evolve data architecture patterns and modelling guidance, selecting approaches suited to business needs, reuse, scale, performance and lifecycle requirements.
• Define and assure data contracts, schemas, lineage requirements, metadata structures and lifecycle controls, working with Data Engineering & Platforms and Integration Architecture on implementation patterns.
• Resolve complex cross-domain data dependencies and trade-offs, balancing business needs, delivery feasibility, data quality, security, resilience, cost and long-term simplification; escalate material exceptions through governance.
• Work with Data Products & Governance to embed data quality, catalogue, glossary, classification, privacy, retention and stewardship requirements into solution designs.
• Provide senior architecture input to migration, platform modernisation, consolidation and legacy retirement programmes, including source-to-target mapping, coexistence, reconciliation and transition sequencing.
• Engage early in demand shaping and investment assessment to identify data dependencies, architecture complexity, non-functional requirements and delivery risks before commitments are made.
• Maintain reusable data architecture artefacts; identify cross-estate duplication, conflicting models and technical debt; and shape remediation roadmaps with architecture, engineering, governance and product leadership.
• Coach and mentor Data Architects and provide technical direction to data engineers, analytics engineers and partners, improving consistency and quality without creating unnecessary delivery dependency.
• Represent data architecture in governance and design authority forums, presenting options, recommendations, exceptions and decision impacts to senior technical and business stakeholders.
• Act as a senior escalation point for Data Architects and work across Enterprise Architecture, Data Products & Governance, Data Engineering & Platforms, Integration, Security, Solution Architecture, Product, programme teams and strategic partners.
• Ensure governance requirements are designed into solutions and provide senior architecture input when policy or ownership decisions affect solution design.
• Provide the architecture implemented by Data Engineering & Platforms, delivery squads and strategic partners, and assure major technical decisions.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a Data Architect, Senior Data Architect, Data Solution Architect or similarly senior data-focused architecture specialist in a complex enterprise technology environment.
• Strong practical expertise in conceptual, logical and physical data modelling, with a track record of shaping cross-domain models and resolving complex data design decisions.
• Deep understanding of modern data architecture across lakehouse, data warehouse, data products, analytics, reporting and operational data, including dimensional, 3NF, Data Vault and semantic patterns.
• Strong experience designing end-to-end data architectures on modern cloud data platforms; practical knowledge of Databricks or a comparable enterprise lakehouse platform is highly advantageous.
• Experience defining authoritative sources, system-of-record boundaries, data contracts, lineage, and master and reference data approaches across multiple systems or domains.
• Strong understanding of metadata, data catalogue, data quality, privacy, security, retention and governance-by-design, with experience working alongside governance functions and tooling such as Alation.
• Experience designing data architectures for enterprise-scale analytics, semantic layers and reporting; familiarity with Tableau, Looker or comparable technologies is beneficial.
• Experience leading architecture for data migration, platform modernisation, consolidation, application replacement or legacy retirement, including transition and reconciliation approaches.
• Proven ability to act as a senior technical authority, constructively challenge architects, engineers, system integrators and vendors, and make pragmatic recommendations as requirements and technology evolve.
• Experience working across Product, Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Integration, Security, Governance and business teams in product-led, Agile or squad-based environments.
• Experience coaching or mentoring other architects or senior technical specialists and improving the quality and consistency of architecture practice across teams.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the ability to explain complex data architecture trade-offs clearly to senior technical and non-technical stakeholders and drive alignment.
• Experience with Retail, Fashion, Luxury or Consumer Goods data—particularly Product, Customer, Merchandise, Sales, Inventory and Supply Chain domains—is highly beneficial.
• Must be based in the Central London office four days a week.

Skills

Experience

Significant experience in a senior data architecture role; no number of years stated.

Culture

Burberry fosters a creative and inclusive workplace culture that values diversity and sustainability. The company is committed to being a force for good, driving industry change and championing community engagement.

About Cerulean

Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.