London, GBR, W1A 1AA | Cardiff, GBR, CF10 1FT | Glasgow, GBR, G511DA | Newcastle-upon-Tyne, GBR, NE991RN | Salford, GBR, M50 2QH

JOB DETAILS

JOB BAND: E
CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time
DEPARTMENT: BBC Product Group
LOCATION: London, Glasgow, Salford, Newcastle, Cardiff
PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £95,000 - £110,000 depending on relevant skills, knowledge and experience. The expected salary range for this role reflects internal benchmarking and external market insights.

We\'re happy to discuss flexible working. If you\'d like to, please indicate your preference in the application – though there\'s no obligation to do so now. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The BBC is reimagining the data platform that powers industry reporting, north-star metrics, marketing, personalisation, business insight, digital application development, and content commissioning. As part of this, the BBC is moving towards a self-service data platform that supports analytical, machine learning, and near-real time use cases at scale.

We are looking for a Lead Architect to shape this next-generation platform. You will be responsible for developing reusable capabilities that enable data teams to ingest data through ELT/ETL pipelines, transform it across our data lake and warehouse, and make it available for production workloads. The platform must support the entire data lifecycle—from early exploration to operational production—while ensuring governance, security, and repeatability.

Our core environment is AWS, with Redshift at the centre, and we are consolidating towards a unified environment. Governance, data catalogue integration, and scalable pipelines are essential to this vision.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

This is a critical role that will see you embedded in cross-functional teams operating within the Product Operating Model, working with engineers, product managers, data scientists, delivery managers, and security specialists. You will also collaborate closely with architects across the BBC to ensure coherence and alignment with wider enterprise architecture.

We want the BBC to be as renowned for the quality of its engineering as it is for the quality of its content. This role offers the opportunity to work in a collaborative environment, on systems of national scale and impact, shaping the future of data at the BBC.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

• Partner with Product and Engineering from discovery through delivery to ensure solutions are feasible, sustainable, and aligned with BBC’s data strategy.
• Co-own architectural decisions, embedding oversight into cross-functional teams and documenting choices through ADRs.
• Provide architectural leadership across the BBC ecosystem, ensuring technical coherence, managing dependencies, and minimising complexity.
• Champion patterns, best practices, and evolutionary design approaches to deliver secure, robust, and repeatable solutions.
• Mentor and coach engineering teams, raising technical delivery standards and communicating architecture clearly to all stakeholders.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• Proven architecture experience designing high-volume, near-real time data platforms with strong focus on resilience, reliability, and security.
• Expertise in AWS (particularly Redshift), ELT/ETL pipelines, and the full end-to-end data lifecycle from exploration to production.
• Experience embedding data governance, metadata management, and catalogue tooling into platform solutions.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with multi-disciplinary teams to deliver on architectural strategy.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence, translate technical detail, and shape a compelling strategic vision.

DESIRED BUT NOT REQUIRED:

• Experience enabling self-service analytical platforms and supporting use cases such as personalisation, machine learning, and advanced analytics.
• Knowledge of big data technologies and their practical application for technical and data professionals.
• Experience in agile software delivery at scale, with a perspective on what good looks like in data engineering.
• Knowledge of cloud-native and microservice architectures across multiple domains (web, mobile, data).
• Experience evaluating and advocating for emerging technologies to deliver business value.

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.

Before your start date, you may need to disclose any unspent convictions or police charges, in line with our Contracts of Employment policy. This allows us to discuss any support you may need and assess any risks. Failure to disclose may result in the withdrawal of your offer.

Disclaimer

This job description is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

The BBC is committed to redeploying employees seeking suitable alternative employment within the BBC and they will be given priority consideration ahead of other applicants. Priority consideration means for those employees seeking redeployment their application will be considered alongside anyone else at risk of redundancy, prior to any individuals being considered who are not at risk.

Information at a Glance

This is your BBC

At the BBC you can create and innovate in an inclusive environment while contributing to some of the world’s best loved content, and the BBC’s mission to inform, educate and entertain.

Find out more about the BBC

Life at BBC

Here you will benefit from: • Fair pay and flexible benefits including a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week, 25 days annual leave with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care and gym. • Excellent career and professional development. • Support in your working life, including flexible working which you can discuss with us at any point during the application, selection or offer. • A values-based organisation where the way we do things is important as what we do.

Benefits may vary if you are joining on an FTC basis.

Learn more about life at the BBC and our values in our candidate pack.

Candidate pack

You belong

We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual\'s unique contribution, so all our employees feel that they can belong, thrive and achieve their full potential.

We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to join us. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.

We welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief.

Find out more about diversity, inclusion and belonging in our strategy below.

Diversity, inclusion & belonging strategy

Disability confident

We are a disability confident employer. If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the interview process, or to carry out this role, please contact us via email and we’d be happy to discuss: reasonable.adjustments@bbc.co.uk

BBC Group and Public Services, Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, United Kingdom, W1A 1AA. BBC Studios Distribution Limited, company no: 01420028, registered address: 1 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, London, United Kingdom W12 7FA.