Lead Specialist Engineer - Networks

UK Health Security Agency; Greater London; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 48,000; Full time

Job summary

UKHSA is seeking a Lead Specialist Engineer - Networks to maintain and enhance our enterprise network services at Porton Down. You will act as a technical expert, ensuring availability, performance, security and resilience while guiding engineers across ICT.

This senior role involves incident response, project support, documentation, and advising on best practices. On-site only, it offers a challenging environment with opportunities to influence network strategy and keep critical public health

Qualifications

• Extensive experience with enterprise networks and security
• Ability to diagnose and resolve complex networking issues
• Proven incident management and technical leadership

Responsibilities

• Maintain and optimise network infrastructure for high availability
• Configure, monitor, and support network hardware/software
• Lead incident response and root-cause analysis
• Ensure security, access controls and disaster recovery readiness
• Produce and maintain technical documentation and standards
• Provide guidance to junior engineers and peers

Skills

Network infrastructure

Incident response

TCP/IP protocols

Security best practices

Documentation

Education

CCNA or equivalent

Job description

Lead Specialist Engineer - Networks

Salary:

Civil Service Senior Executive Officer (SEO) £41,983 - £48,128 per annum (pro rata), plus a Market Pay Supplement of up to £10,000 per annum (pro rata).

Location:

Porton Down, Wiltshire (on-site). Please note that hybrid working is not available for this role.

Shape the Future of UKHSA's Network Infrastructure

We're looking for an experienced and technically skilled Lead Specialist Engineer - Networks to play a key role in maintaining and enhancing the critical network infrastructure that underpins UKHSA's vital public health mission.

This is an exciting opportunity to work within a highly specialised environment, ensuring the availability, performance, security and resilience of enterprise network services. You'll act as a technical expert within your field, supporting the delivery of robust, secure and reliable networking solutions while contributing to the continuous improvement of our ICT services. As a senior technical specialist, you'll work closely with engineers across the ICT function, respond to incidents and service disruptions, and help drive best practice across network operations and service delivery.

What You'll Be Doing

As a Lead Specialist Engineer, you'll support the delivery of technical excellence across UKHSA's network environment and help ensure services remain secure, resilient and fit for future needs.

Key responsibilities include:

• - Managing, maintaining and optimising network infrastructure to ensure high levels of availability and performance.
• - Configuring, monitoring and supporting network hardware, software and associated technologies.
• - Troubleshooting incidents, outages and technical issues, taking swift action to minimise disruption and restore service.
• - Maintaining system security, integrity and resilience, including access controls, backup arrangements and disaster recovery processes.
• - Applying patches, upgrades and enhancements in a timely and controlled manner.
• - Monitoring performance, capacity and utilisation trends, providing recommendations for future improvements and investment.
• - Producing and maintaining technical documentation, procedures and operational standards.
• - Supporting infrastructure projects, system implementations, upgrades and migrations.
• - Providing technical guidance, knowledge sharing and support to colleagues, including junior engineers where required.
• - Ensuring compliance with UKHSA policies, security standards and industry best practice.
• - Keeping up to date with emerging technologies and making recommendations on innovations that could benefit UKHSA's network services.
• - Providing accurate effort estimates, technical advice and updates to senior engineers and managers.
• - Participating in out-of-hours support activities when required.

About You

We're looking for someone who combines strong technical expertise with a proactive and collaborative approach.

You’ll have experience managing and supporting complex network environments and be confident working across a broad range of networking technologies. You’ll be able to diagnose and resolve technical issues effectively, balance multiple priorities and communicate complex technical information clearly to a variety of audiences.

Essential Criteria

This is a role that demands detailed knowledge and considerable experience of specialist technologies. Therefore, each candidate must be able to demonstrate qualification and expertise in multiple integral technologies as indicated on the list below:

• - Extreme Networks and Cisco network equipment.
• - Network routing and TCP/IP protocols.
• - Palo Alto Firewalls.
• - Extreme Networks (or equivalent) Wireless access point technologies.
• - VPN deployment and configuration.
• - NCSC requirements for the implementation, management and administration of secure networks.
• - Familiarity with NCSC Secure by Design Principles.
• - Understanding of network security principles and practices, data encryption and remote access technologies.
• - WAN/LAN/WLAN Architectures.
• - Application Delivery Controllers and/or Load Balancing technologies.
• - Must have previous experience of undertaking a specialist role and of managing systems for a large user base.
• - Experience with monitoring a network infrastructure to optimise performance and support capacity planning.
• - Ability to analyse and interpret information, pre-empt and evaluate issues, and recommend an appropriate course of action to address the issues.
• - Ability to work on own initiative and organise own workload without supervision, working to tight and often changing timescales.
• - Formal technical qualification, e.g. Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) or equivalent.

Desirable Criteria

• - Experience with Network Function Virtualisation and Software Defined Network architecture.
• - Skills for communication on complex matters and difficult situations, requiring persuasion and influence.

Why Join UKHSA?

This is your opportunity to apply your technical expertise to work that genuinely makes a difference.

At UKHSA, you’ll be part of an organisation whose technology supports critical public services and helps protect the health and wellbeing of millions of people.

In return, you’ll benefit from:

• - Working on nationally significant technology services.
• - A generous Civil Service pension, with employer contributions averaging 28.97%.
• - Exposure to complex, large-scale and diverse network environments.
• - Investment in learning, development and professional certifications.
• - A collaborative, supportive and inclusive culture.
• - Opportunities to influence the future of critical public sector technology.

Discover more about our rewards and benefits on our website.