Principal Consultant - Microsoft Fabric, Data & AI

The Opportunity
We are partnering with a specialist Microsoft Data & AI consultancy looking to appoint a Principal Consultant to play a key role across its growing Microsoft Fabric practice.
This is not simply a Data Architect or Data Engineering position.
The role sits at the intersection of technical architecture, data engineering, analytics, visualisation, AI and client advisory.
You will work directly with customers after the initial sales and engagement process, taking ownership of the technical conversation, understanding the client's business and data challenges, shaping the solution, and guiding them from initial discovery through architecture and delivery.
Working across customers in sectors including retail, financial services and mining, you will become a trusted technical advisor while drawing on specialist engineering and consulting teams throughout delivery.
What You'll Be Doing
Lead technical discovery and solution conversations with customers.Translate business problems into practical Data, Analytics and AI architectures.Design modern data solutions using Microsoft Fabric and the wider Azure data ecosystem.Advise clients on data architecture, engineering, integration, analytics and visualisation.Guide customers from data platform foundations through to advanced analytics and AI.Design and communicate end-to-end architectures spanning ingestion, transformation, storage, semantic models and consumption.Provide strong guidance around Power BI, semantic modelling and data visualisation.Help customers understand the emerging opportunities presented by Fabric Data Agents, Copilot and agentic AI.Work alongside sales teams as opportunities transition into technical discovery and delivery.Bring Data Engineers, BI specialists and other technical resources into engagements where required.Provide technical leadership throughout delivery while maintaining strong client relationships.Contribute to the ongoing development of the organisation's Microsoft Fabric, Data & AI capability.
What We're Looking For
You are likely to have progressed through a Data Engineering, Data Architecture, BI or Microsoft Data Platform background into a senior consulting or architecture position.
Technically, you will bring strong experience across areas such as:
Microsoft FabricAzure Data PlatformData architecture and modern data platformsData engineering and integrationLakehouse and medallion architecturePower BISemantic modellingData visualisationSQLData pipelines and orchestrationOneLakeMicrosoft Fabric Data AgentsCopilot and emerging Microsoft AI capabilities
Exposure to Azure AI Foundry, Databricks, Purview, Real-Time Intelligence or broader agentic AI technologies would also be highly regarded.
The Important Part
Technical capability alone will not make someone successful in this role.
We're looking for someone who can sit across the table from a senior customer stakeholder, understand what they are trying to achieve, challenge their thinking where appropriate and explain complex technology in a way that makes sense.
You should be equally comfortable discussing an architecture with a Data Engineer as you are explaining the business outcome to an executive stakeholder.
You don't need to personally build every component of the solution.
You do need to understand the entire journey well enough to shape it, architect it, communicate it and bring the right specialists into the conversation at the right time.
Ideal Background
Experience working within a Microsoft Partner, Data & AI consultancy or enterprise consulting environment would be particularly relevant.
Industry experience across retail, financial services and/or mining would be advantageous, particularly where you have led customer-facing data transformation engagements.
This represents an opportunity to join a specialist Microsoft Data & AI business at a time when Fabric, analytics and AI are rapidly converging — and to help customers understand what that convergence means for their organisation.