UCAS is at the heart of connecting people to higher education.

UCAS is the world’s leading shared admissions service for higher education. We provide application services for UK universities and colleges as well as delivering a wide range of research, consultancy and advisory services to schools, colleges, careers services, professional bodies and employers.

We’re a successful and fast-growing organisation, which helps hundreds of thousands of people every year. We're committed to delivering a first-class service to all of our customers — they're at the heart of everything we do.

The Digital Services business unit is at the heart of UCAS’ technical innovation, data and infrastructure. It focuses on leveraging data science, technology, and enterprise architecture to enhance UCAS' digital products and services. The unit is dedicated to developing and improving customer-centric digital solutions, ensuring seamless and secure online experiences for all users. By providing insightful data and analysis, often made available to anyone with free-to-use intuitive dashboard, Digital Services empowers the Higher Education sector and those interested in the sector with valuable information to make informed decisions. By working in collaborative, expert led, multi-disciplinary teams, Digital Services drives UCAS’ mission to connect students with their next opportunities through advanced technological solutions.

The Data Specialist will play a key role in delivering a customer‑centric digital transformation programme, designing data architectures that enable a unified Customer 360 and personalised customer experiences across digital channels, including web and email.

The role is responsible for defining how customer, behavioural, and transactional data is collected, unified, governed, and activated to support CRM, marketing, and digital engagement use cases. Working closely with business, digital, and technology teams, the Data Architect will ensure data platforms are scalable, secure, and aligned to long-term enterprise strategy.

Technical:

• Proven experience as a Data Specialist, Data Architect, or Senior Data Engineer delivering customer-centric digital transformation programmes

• Strong expertise in data modelling, ideally for customer, identity, and interaction data

• Experience with Salesforce Data Cloud (Data360) for Customer 360 and CRM use cases, including:

• Ingestion and unification of customer data from multiple sources

• Identity resolution and profile stitching

• Designing data architectures to support personalisation across customer channels (web, email, marketing automation, CRM)

• Activation of unified customer profiles into engagement and analytics platforms

• Experience with Databricks for large-scale data processing, analytics, and event-driven personalisation
  
  
  

• Strong SQL skills and understanding of modern data processing patterns (batch and streaming)

• Experience with ETL/ELT, APIs, CDPs, and data integration approaches

• Solid understanding of data security, privacy, consent management, and access control

Conceptual:

• Strong understanding of Customer 360, data warehouses, data lakes, and analytics architectures

• Knowledge of data governance, quality, metadata, and lineage practices

• Ability to design architectures balancing personalisation, performance, and compliance

• Able to balance short-term delivery with long-term architecture

Soft Skills:

• Strong stakeholder engagement across marketing, digital, CRM, product, and technology teams

• Ability to communicate complex data concepts to non-technical audiences

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills

Desirable Skills:

• Experience with big data/streaming technologies (e.g. Spark, Kafka)

• Experience with BI tools (e.g. Power BI, Tableau)

• Cloud or data architecture certifications

Qualifications:

• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience)

Target salary: £58,000 + below benefits:

• Purpose-driven work in a charity-led organisation connecting people to education and opportunity

• Internal training, mentoring, and access to industry-recognised certifications through our development academies

• Hybrid working model built on trust and flexibility, with a 35-hour week and flexible contracts

• 30 days annual leave, 3 concessionary days over Christmas, bank holidays, and the option to purchase additional leave

• Everyday wellbeing support through Perkbox, offering discounts and wellness tools

• Onsite facilities including a subsidised gym, café, and free parking at our Cheltenham office

• Inclusive culture supported by employee networks, wellbeing champions, and Mental Health First Aiders

• Recognition and reward through our quarterly employee scheme and an ex-gratia bonus for going above and beyond