Data Architecture and Migration Specialist

Bristol, Darlington, London, Manchester, Wolverhampton Job Summary Here at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), we work on things that make a real difference to people’s lives. Whether it's through the homes we live in, the work of our local councils, or the communities we’re all part of, our work is at the top of the political agenda. We have ambitious and far-reaching outcomes to achieve this year and, if you’re thinking of joining us, there’s never been a more exciting time. We have over 3,500 staff who are based in 20 offices across the UK. The Data Migration Specialist is a critical role within the UNITY Programme. The UNITY Cluster is a cross-departmental UK government initiative involving HMRC, the Department for Transport (DfT), and MHCLG. Its goal is to modernise and unify back-office operations specifically finance, procurement, HR, and payroll - through a shared cloud-based ERP platform powered by SAP and delivered in partnership with Deloitte. The UNITY Cluster represents a significant digital transformation effort, impacting over 100,000 civil servants and aligning with the Shared Services Strategy. The successful candidate will be responsible for enabling seamless, secure, and accurate data transition across the organisation as part of a wider end-to-end transformation. We welcome candidates from a range of backgrounds—whether your experience lies in IT, data architecture, business analysis, or transformation. What matters most is your ability to work with complex datasets, understand business and user needs, and lead structured, risk-aware migration planning and execution. You’ll bring strong analytical skills, a detail-oriented mindset, and the ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences. This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a programme that is reimagining how data underpins decision-making, service delivery, and organisational performance. We particularly welcome candidates from an ethnic minority background and other underrepresented groups to apply, as we work to continually improve our ability to represent the places and communities we support through our work. Find out more about what it's like to work in a digital, data and technology role at MHCLG including our culture, ways of working, career progression and staff benefits. You can also read the MHCLG Digital blog to learn about the work we're doing. Job Description Job Description As The Data Architecture And Migration Specialist, You’ll: • Define the retained data architecture for MHCLG and ALBs transitioning into Unity systems • Lead the development and execution of data migration plans, ensuring data integrity, completeness, and auditability • Assess legacy data landscapes and design extraction strategies for each data source • Define and manage data transformation rules to map legacy formats to Unity-compliant formats • Establish and maintain a centralised data catalogue and data lineage documentation • Collaborate with MI leads to ensure migrated data supports reporting and performance dashboards • Support cutover planning and execution, including rollback strategies and contingency planning As The Data Architecture And Migration Specialist, You’ll: • Define the retained data architecture for MHCLG and ALBs transitioning into Unity systems • Lead the development and execution of data migration plans, ensuring data integrity, completeness, and auditability • Assess legacy data landscapes and design extraction strategies for each data source • Define and manage data transformation rules to map legacy formats to Unity-compliant formats • Establish and maintain a centralised data catalogue and data lineage documentation • Collaborate with MI leads to ensure migrated data supports reporting and performance dashboards • Support cutover planning and execution, including rollback strategies and contingency planning Person specification As the Data Architecture and Migration Specialist, you’ll have: • Proven experience in data migration across complex, multi-system environments • A strong understanding of SAP data structures, ETL processes, and data quality management • Experience with data governance frameworks and GDPR compliance • The ability to work with large datasets and perform data profiling, cleansing, and transformation • Experience with SQL, data integration tools, and scripting languages (e.g. Python, PowerShell) • Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g. Azure, AWS) and enterprise systems (e.g. ERP, CRM) • Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, including translating technical concepts for non-technical audiences • The ability to manage risks and dependencies associated with data migration activities Alongside your salary of £54,531, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government contributes £15,797 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. • Learning and development tailored to your role • An environment with flexible working options • A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity • A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% Selection process details MHCLG want to bring in a diverse workforce at all levels. Our application system is designed to remove as much bias as possible from the recruitment system – this means that a hiring manager does not know your name, your details, see your whole application in one go (or have your CV at review stage unless stated otherwise). Your answers are randomised and chunked up. This means that each assessor views sets of responses to questions for example all candidates’ responses to ‘Seeing the Big Picture’ rather than seeing a candidate’s full application. The science behind this is that recruitment can be subject to ordering and fatigue effects and we want to reduce this as much as possible. Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that each of your answers would be viewed by different assessors. When Writing Your Application, Remember: • The assessor won’t be reading your answers sequentially. • Do not assume that the same assessors will have read all of your answers. • If talking about something in your first answer, make sure that you write the second answer as if you had not written the first (and so on!) Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. CV and Cover Letter Declaration We recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity - this is called anonymous recruitment. Please Remove References To Your: • name/title • educational institutions • age • gender • email address • postal address • phone number • nationality/immigration status You will need to merge your CV and covering letter into one document. When submitting your application Applied will ask you to upload a CV, when doing this you should upload your merged document of your CV and covering letter. Most of our campaigns utilise multiple assessors and so it is possible that your application would be viewed by different assessors. In the event that we receive a large number of applications, we may conduct an initial sift using the lead sift question listed in the advert. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to interview. Lead sift question (Experience): Describe a time when you led a data migration project involving live or legacy systems. How did you ensure the integrity of the data and that it met the organisation’s reporting or management information needs? At sift, through your CV and covering letter we will be assessing: Experience Technical Behaviours (Working together, Delivering at a pace) Your covering letter should be no more than 1 page referencing how you designed or implemented a data architecture or cataloguing solution. How did you ensure the solution supported future data access, usability, and compliance across different teams or organisations? The interview will be of a blended nature consisting of the following success profiles elements: Experience Technical Strength The strength based questions will require natural responses from the candidates. In full the campaign will test the below Success Profile Elements: Experience: Yes - Experience questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the person specification Technical: Yes – Technical questions will be based around the essential skills and criteria as listed in the person specification Behaviours: (Working together, Delivering at a pace) Strengths: (Yes) We Do Not Consider Direct CV Applications – You Must Apply For This Role Via The Application Link On Civil Service Jobs: Please note that near miss offers may be made at the lower grade to candidates who do not meet the grade criteria for this campaign. Grade 7 Group 1 Digital and Data salary • The salary for this role will between £64,979 - £70,011 (London), £59,586 - £64,641 (National) depending on the proficiency level assessment. • An additional digital allowance may be payable depending on the level of assessed capability up to £9,000 • For applicants in receipt of existing allowances, we will assess each case individually and aim to match the digital allowance implemented with no detriment. • For existing civil servants, the usual policy on level transfer and promotion will apply and is non-negotiable. Please note that the average employer pension contribution is based upon the National minimum salary for this role. Should your agreed starting salary for this role be different, the average employer pension contribution will be calculated accordingly. If you are a Secondee, this will not apply as you will remain on your home organisation’s terms and conditions. Benefits Transfers across the Civil Service on or after 4 October 2018: Any move to MHCLG from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk. For further information about the benefits available to MHCLG employees, please see the attached Candidate Pack. Geographical Location: • London • Wolverhampton • Bristol • Manchester • Darlington • There may be opportunities for candidates to work flexibly depending on the business needs. This will be discussed with the vacancy manager on a case-by-case basis if you are successful for the role. • Please note: The Darlington Economic Campus is a pioneering new cross-government hub which will bring together people across departments and public organisations to play an active role in the most important economic issues of the day. The work of the Campus will make a real difference to people both across the UK and internationally. There will be substantial career opportunities and exciting prospects - a career at the Campus means you will be working at the heart of Government, with access to the benefits and fantastic opportunities offered by the civil service. This role is based at MHCLG and we will be joined on the campus by: • HM Treasury • Department for International Trade • Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy • Office for National Statistics • Department for Education For further information on the DEC, please take a look at the attached DEC candidate pack. Sift and Interview dates Sifting is envisaged to take place W/C 29th September 2025 with interview dates to be confirmed. All interviews are currently being held remotely via videocall. Reserve List In the event that we identify more appointable candidates than we currently have posts available, we will hold applicant details on a reserve list for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. This may include roles at a lower grade. Candidates placed on a reserve list will be informed of this. Those candidates who do not wish to remain on the reserve list should contact recruitment@communities.gov.uk to be removed from the reserve list. SC (Security Check): Important note Successful candidates for roles based in our 2 Marsham Street building must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is Security Check and the process can take up to 8 weeks to complete. Please note that successful candidates will need to pass the Security Check – this requires you to have been resident in the UK for the past 5 years. Please refer to the MHCLG Notes on Security Clearance section of our Candidate Pack for further information on Security Check (SC). Candidates should also note that with effect from 1st August 2018 the department will also check all applicants who are successful at interview, against the Internal Fraud Database (IFD) held by the Cabinet Office. In accordance with the Civil Service Internal Fraud Policy, any applicant who is included on the IFD will be refused employment by MHCLG Please see the Candidate Pack for further information on the Internal Fraud Database. Candidate Pack Information Please see attached Candidate pack for further information. Before starting your application it’s very important to make sure that you are eligible to apply and meet the Civil Service nationality requirements. All candidates are expected to read the information provided in the MHCLG candidate pack regarding nationality requirements and rules Internal Fraud Database The Internal Fraud function of the Fraud, Error, Debt and Grants Function at the Cabinet Office processes details of civil servants who have been dismissed for committing internal fraud, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned. The Cabinet Office receives the details from participating government organisations of civil servants who have been dismissed, or who would have been dismissed had they not resigned, for internal fraud. In instances such as this, civil servants are then banned for 5 years from further employment in the civil service. The Cabinet Office then processes this data and discloses a limited dataset back to MHCLG as a participating government organisations. MHCLG then carry out the pre employment checks so as to detect instances where known fraudsters are attempting to reapply for roles in the civil service. In this way, the policy is ensured and the repetition of internal fraud is prevented. For more information please see- Internal Fraud Register Fixed Term Details For external candidates – you will be offered a 23 month fixed term appointment with a possibility of permanency. For existing civil servants – you will be offered a 23 month loan opportunity. Before applying for the role, you will need to seek approval from your parent department to take up a loan appointment should you be successful. For Secondments - you will be offered a 23 month year secondment opportunity. Before applying for the role, you will need to seek approval from your employer to take up a secondment opportunity should you be successful. For MHCLG employees - you will retain your existing contract. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups: • UK nationals • nationals of the Republic of Ireland • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) • individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 • Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job Contact : • Name : Digital Data Jobs • Email : digitaldatajobs@communities.gov.uk Recruitment team • Email : recruitment@communities.gov.uk