Interim Data Warehouse Modernisation Lead - VC-backed Digital Bank

Data Warehouse Modernisation Lead
UK-based | Predominantly remote with occasional London travel | Contract | Up to £700 per day
We are working with an established, fast-growing, VC-backed digital bank undergoing a significant modernisation of its technology and data infrastructure.
The bank is seeking an experienced Data Warehouse Modernisation Lead to take end-to-end ownership of the design, build and operation of a new enterprise data warehouse on Microsoft Fabric.
This is a senior, hands-on contract role. You will need to be equally comfortable working directly with executive stakeholders, leading a complex programme of change and remaining hands-on with the underlying data architecture, pipelines, modelling and governance.
The opportunity
You will lead the bank’s transition from a fragmented legacy reporting environment to a modern, governed and scalable data platform.
Working as an embedded member of the technology team, you will deliver each business domain from source system through to governed and tested data, an authoritative semantic layer and live business reporting.
Your responsibilities will include:
Designing, building and operating the Microsoft Fabric data warehouse.
Establishing its workspaces, capacity management, OneLake structure and bronze, silver and gold layers.
Designing the core business domain model across customers, accounts, balances and transactions.
Building Fabric-native ingestion using Data Factory pipelines, Mirroring, Dataflows Gen2 and OneLake Shortcuts.
Designing bespoke extraction from legacy and on-premise core banking systems.
Owning the modelling approach across dbt and native Fabric capabilities.
Building and governing a single authoritative semantic model for Power BI, Excel, AI tools and other approved applications.
Implementing row-level and column-level security at the data layer.
Establishing data dictionaries, lineage, reconciliation and quality testing.
Using AI to accelerate the analysis and documentation of legacy reporting logic.
Working with senior executives, Compliance and Data Protection stakeholders to ensure the platform meets the requirements of a regulated bank.
Leading the wider programme, managing change and bringing stakeholders with you throughout the transformation.
The person
We are looking for a seasoned data specialist who combines genuine technical depth with strong leadership and stakeholder-management skills. A hands-on and entrepreneurial mindset is essential.
You should bring:
Deep, current experience of Microsoft Fabric, including OneLake, Data Factory, Dataflows Gen2, semantic models, Direct Lake and data-layer security.
Strong SQL and SQL Server expertise, with the ability to own both data pipelines and modelling.
Experience designing and delivering a modern cloud-based data warehouse.
The ability to reverse-engineer undocumented legacy reporting systems and data flows.
Strong knowledge of governance, lineage, data dictionaries, reconciliation and quality testing within a regulated environment.
The credibility to engage senior executives and influence strategic decisions.
A hands-on approach, with the willingness and technical ability to remain “on the keyboard”.
Experience leading programmes and managing organisational change alongside technical delivery.
Previous experience in a challenger bank, neobank, payments business, FX platform, or innovative fintech is required. Exposure to core banking platforms, particularly Temenos T24, would also be valuable.
Additional experience with dbt, Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Fivetran, Airbyte or AI/LLM-integrated data architectures would be beneficial.
Applicants are to be based in the UK and be able to travel to London occasionally.
Day rate: Up to £700 per day.

Work arrangement
Yes