Job Description

We are a UK & Ireland practice with strong connections across all of our studios in London, Sheffield, Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast, Plymouth, Birmingham, and Dublin. We work collaboratively as one team structured by sector, sharing resources, knowledge and skills. Ranked as one of the top 20 largest practices in the UK this year, other recent accolades include:  

• AJ100 List of UK’s Top Architectural Practices 2025

• Shortlisted, AJ100 Awards – Employer of the Year 2025

• Shortlisted, Architect of Year Awards – Social Value Architect of the Year 2025

• Shortlisted, Architect of Year Awards – Employer of the Year 2025

• Highly Commended, MMC Awards – Architectural Practice of the Year 2025

Opportunity

We are looking for a GIS Developer & Analyst to join our growing SDA team. You will produce high-quality maps and spatial outputs for live projects, integrate geospatial data into interactive web applications, create actionable business dashboards, develop and automate geospatial workflows, conduct advanced analysis (transport, environmental, wellbeing), and contribute to the development of GIS-powered tools within HLM’s Thoughtful Design Toolkit. Your work will support strategic decisions by transforming raw data into clear, visual insights that drive project outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Spatial Data Mapping & Analysis

• Provide day-to-day GIS support across projects, working closely with architects, landscape and urban designers.

• Process, organise, clean, transform, validate datasets, including vector, raster, tabular, and open-source geographic data to ensure high-quality inputs for analysis.

• Produce high-quality, publication-ready maps and data visualisations tailored to diverse audiences, from internal design teams to planning authorities and clients.

GIS Programming & Tooling

• Work proficiently in QGIS (and/or ArcGIS) for data mapping and processing.

• Develop and document GIS processing workflows, models, and scripts.

• Write Python scripts for geospatial data processing using libraries (GeoPandas, NumPy, etc).

• Query and manage spatial databases using PostGIS and SQL.

• Support the development of web-based GIS applications.

• Develop dashboards using Power BI platform or equivalent tools.

• Contribute to automated data pipelines that connect GIS outputs to other applications.

• Contribute with geospatial components to our Thoughtful Design Toolkit.

Advanced Urban Analytics

• Work with diverse data types including environmental, transport, IoT and sensor data, applying appropriate spatial methods for each context.

• Run advanced analytics (pedestrian flows, microclimate performance, accessibility, kernel density, space syntax, urban form, or others)

• Apply statistical analysis techniques to uncover patterns and trends that influence decision making (e.g. spatial clustering, regression, autocorrelation measures)

• Support masterplanning and urban design projects with evidence-based spatial intelligence, including site modelling, computational design workflows and design scenario testing.

Collaboration & Communication

• Engage directly with architects, landscape and urban designers to understand project needs and data requirements and translate them into analytical briefs.

• Translate complex data into clear, compelling narratives that inform and enhance the design process.

• Produce high-quality, accessible and beautiful data visualisations.

• Keep clear records of data sources, workflows, and outputs, contributing to a growing internal knowledge base and data library.

• Support internal documentation and capacity building for GIS.

Skills & Experience

Essential

• Expert use of QGIS (and/or ArcGIS) for spatial analysis and cartographic outputs

• Excellent knowledge of Python for spatial workflows (GeoPandas, NumPy, OSMnx, Overpass API)

• Experience with Relational Databases with spatial extension (like PostgreSQL/PostGIS , MySQL, Oracle DB or Microsoft SQL Server)

• Experience working with open and proprietary geospatial data (Ordnance Survey, OpenStreetMap, government portals and others)

• Strong understanding of coordinate reference systems, data formats (SHP, GeoJSON, GeoTIFF, etc.)

• Experience in advanced data analysis & engineering (harvesting, cleaning, pre-processing, ingesting)

Desirable

• Familiarity with cloud-based GIS platforms

• Experience with AI-guided GIS workflows

• Development of web-based GIS applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JSON, GeoJSON, Bootstrap, jQuery, AJAX, or PHP

• Knowledge of R for data analysis and spatial statistics

• Space syntax tools and methods (e.g. depthmapX or equivalent)

• Experience with big data, environmental, transport, IoT, or sensor datasets

• Familiarity with Rhino and Grasshopper for urban computational design workflows

• Power BI integration with GIS data and spatial dashboards

• Machine learning applied to spatial data or remote sensing analysis

Person Specification

The ideal candidate will be a spatially literate data analyst who is comfortable producing both technically precise analytical outputs as well as beautifully crafted maps. You are curious, proactive, meticulous, and detail-oriented and you can adapt to different situations and tasks with ease. You are a strong communicator, identifying technical problems and proposing solutions, whilst staying open to explore and adopt new methods, tools and AI-guided workflows. You are someone who can work comfortably independently as well as part of an interdisciplinary digital design technology team.

We offer a friendly studio environment, an award-winning lifestyle package, and a commitment to your personal development through the HLM Academy. We are also an Employee Owned Trust, which means our employees have a sense of ownership, a say in our direction and are rewarded for the part they play in our future success.

Diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) is at the core of our business. We advocate equal opportunities, creating an inclusive working environment for all. If you have a disability and would prefer to apply in a different mode please contact our HR team for assistance.

If you think this role could be for you, please send your CV and examples of your work.

Those shortlisted will be contacted.

HLM Architects is an Equal Opportunities Employer.