Head of Data

Head of Data

Location: Remote First - Occasional travel to major sites across Europe

Employment Type: Permanent

Salary: €120,000+

Industry: Banking & Financial Services

Key Technologies: Azure | DataBricks | ADF | Cloud Migration | Data Engineering

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Head of Data to lead a major transformation programme for a leading banking organisation. You will be responsible for driving the migration of on-premise Oracle-based data centres into a modern Azure cloud and Databricks ecosystem, shaping the bank’s next-generation data platform and analytics capabilities.

This is a strategic leadership role that combines hands-on technical expertise with team leadership, stakeholder management, and cloud migration strategy. You will work closely with senior business leaders, architects, and engineering teams to deliver a scalable, secure, and future-ready data environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Data Engineering function, managing and mentoring a team of engineers and architects.
• Drive the data platform modernisation strategy, overseeing the migration from on-premise Oracle data centres to Azure and Databricks.
• Collaborate with stakeholders, architects, and product owners to design a scalable data platform architecture.
• Ensure high availability, performance, and security of data pipelines and storage layers.
• Oversee the delivery of ETL/ELT pipelines using Azure Data Factory (ADF), Databricks, and Azure Data Lake.
• Partner with the business and data analytics teams to enable advanced analytics and reporting capabilities.
• Define and implement best practices for data governance, quality, and compliance in a regulated financial environment.
• Keep abreast of emerging cloud, AI, and data engineering trends to drive innovation within the organisation.

Key Skills & Experience

Essential:

• Proven leadership experience heading up data engineering or data platform teams.
• Strong background in Azure ecosystem tools — Databricks, Azure Data Factory (ADF), Azure Data Lake, Synapse.
• Hands-on experience managing large-scale data migration projects from on-prem to cloud.
• Excellent understanding of ETL / ELT pipelines, data modelling, and big data frameworks.
• Strong knowledge of SQL and experience working with Oracle or other RDBMS.
• Skilled in Python or PySpark for data processing and automation.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, especially within banking or regulated financial environments.