Infrastructure Technical Lead - National Security

Forward Role; Manchester, Cheltenham; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

Forward Role is seeking an experienced Infrastructure Technical Lead for a National Security programme, based in the UK with a preference for Manchester or Cheltenham. This hands-on leadership role focuses on modernising secure estate infrastructure across Linux, Windows, virtualization and container platforms, emphasising architecture, engineering delivery and DevSecOps practices.

You'll drive architecture decisions, produce HLDs/LLDs, set engineering standards, mentor delivery teams and move

Qualifications

• Hands-on technical leadership in secure infrastructure
• Experience in architecture & engineering delivery for complex estates
• Familiarity with Linux/Windows, virtualization and modern platforms

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture discussions, create HLDs/LLDs and engineering standards
• Mentor delivery teams and define secure infrastructure practices
• Drive modernisation of legacy infrastructure towards automation and resilience
• Partner with security stakeholders to shape infrastructure strategy

Skills

Infrastructure leadership

Architecture & design

CI/CD

Mentoring

Security engineering

Tools

Ansible

Puppet

Docker

Kubernetes

Nutanix

Job description

Infrastructure Technical Lead – National Security

Location: Manchester preferred / Cheltenham considered
Clearance: Active eDV required
Working pattern: Secure-site working, with travel between locations as required

Strong infrastructure foundations. Modern engineering mindset.

Not every National Security programme is running entirely on cloud-native infrastructure.

Some of the most interesting challenges involve modernising complex, secure estates built across Linux, Windows, physical servers, virtualisation and increasingly containerised platforms.

I'm supporting a specialist National Security engineering consultancy looking for an experienced Infrastructure Technical Lead to help drive that transition.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role, combining architecture, engineering delivery and the opportunity to influence how secure infrastructure evolves.

What you'll be working across

• Linux & Windows: RHEL/Rocky Linux, Windows Server, Active Directory and enterprise infrastructure

• Infrastructure platforms: Virtualisation, hyperconverged infrastructure, storage and server environments

• Automation: Ansible, Puppet, Infrastructure as Code and CI/CD

• Containers & platforms: Docker, Kubernetes and modern platform engineering

• Technical leadership: Architecture, HLDs/LLDs, engineering standards and mentoring

• Modernisation: Moving legacy infrastructure towards more automated, scalable and resilient environments

Experience with Nutanix, secure infrastructure hardening, large-scale storage or high-performance compute would be particularly useful.

Why it's worth a look

This is an opportunity to shape infrastructure strategy, not simply maintain an existing estate.

You'll work closely with engineering and security stakeholders, influence technical decisions and help an established delivery team move towards modern infrastructure and DevSecOps practices.

We're particularly interested in engineers who've grown from deep Infrastructure or Systems Engineering backgrounds into technical leadership, but still enjoy being close to the technology.

Active eDV clearance is essential.

If you're comfortable operating high-side and want a broader technical leadership remit, I'd be happy to discuss the opportunity in confidence.