Data platform architecture
Target-state design for lakehouse, warehouse or hybrid platforms, sized to your data volumes, team and budget — with a pragmatic roadmap to get there.
- Lakehouse
- Warehouse
- Roadmaps
Data engineering consultancy · London
Data platforms your teams can actually trust.
Duclo designs, builds and modernises the pipelines, warehouses and platforms behind your reporting, analytics and AI — so data arrives on time, reconciles first time, and costs what it should.
Services
End-to-end data engineering, from first pipeline to production platform.
Whether you're standing up your first warehouse, untangling a legacy estate, or getting data ready for AI, we bring senior engineering to the parts that are hardest to get right.
Pipelines & integration
Reliable batch and real-time ingestion from SaaS tools, databases, APIs and event streams, built with idempotency, monitoring and recovery in mind.
- ELT / ETL
- CDC
- Streaming
Analytics engineering
Clean, tested, documented data models that give finance, product and operations a single version of the truth.
- dbt
- Dimensional models
- Semantic layer
Cloud migration & modernisation
Move on-prem or legacy workloads to the cloud with a phased plan, parallel running and reconciliation, so nothing breaks on cut-over day.
- AWS
- Azure
- GCP
Data quality & governance
Automated tests, lineage, access controls and data contracts that catch problems before your stakeholders do — and keep you on the right side of UK GDPR.
- Testing
- Lineage
- Access control
DataOps & cost optimisation
CI/CD for data, infrastructure as code, orchestration and observability — plus a hard look at warehouse and cloud spend to cut waste.
- CI/CD
- Terraform
- FinOps
Approach
Clear scope. Working software early. A team that can run it after we leave.
Every engagement follows the same simple shape, scaled to fit — from a two-week assessment to a multi-month platform build.
Discover
We map your sources, consumers, pain points and constraints, and agree what "good" looks like in measurable terms.
Design
A target architecture and phased plan with clear trade-offs on cost, complexity and time to value.
Build
Iterative delivery in short cycles, with tested code in version control and value shipped from the first sprint.
Hand over
Documentation, runbooks and pairing sessions so your team owns the platform with confidence.
Ways to work together
Flexible engagements that fit how you buy.
Fixed-scope projects, ongoing support, or an experienced engineer embedded in your team. We're happy to work inside or outside IR35, depending on the engagement.
Data platform assessment
An independent review of your current stack, pipelines and costs, with a prioritised list of risks, quick wins and a recommended roadmap.
Build & deliver
A defined outcome — a new platform, a migration, a set of production pipelines — delivered end to end with agreed milestones.
Fractional data engineering
Senior engineering capacity a few days a week: leading your data function, mentoring the team and keeping the platform healthy.
Technology
Vendor-neutral, tool-fluent.
We recommend what fits your context, not what we're paid to resell. A selection of the platforms and tools we work with:
Cloud & warehouses
AWSAzureGoogle CloudSnowflakeDatabricksBigQueryRedshiftPostgreSQL
Pipelines & orchestration
Apache AirflowDagsterdbtApache SparkKafkaFivetranAirbytePythonSQL
Engineering practice
TerraformDockerGitHub ActionsGreat ExpectationsOpenLineagePower BILooker
Why Duclo
Senior expertise without the big-consultancy overhead.
You work directly with the engineer doing the work — no bait-and-switch, no pyramid of juniors.
Engineering first
We write and ship production code, not just slide decks. Everything is version-controlled, tested and reviewable.
Business outcomes
Every pipeline traces back to a report, decision or product it serves. If it doesn't, we'll say so.
No lock-in
Open standards, your accounts, your repositories. You own everything we build from day one.
Built to be handed over
Clear docs, simple patterns and knowledge transfer mean your team can run and extend the platform without us.
Let's talk
Got a data problem that won't go away?
Tell us a little about your data, your team and what you're trying to achieve. We'll come back within one working day to arrange a free 30-minute discovery call.