Network Engineering Design Lead
Location: London
Duration: 6 months
Rate: £700, Inside IR35
Clearance: DV required
If you enjoy designing complex enterprise networks and turning technical thinking into solutions that stand up to real-world operational demands, this is a leadership role where you'll make a genuine difference. Hiring for a reputed client, you'll lead a specialist team of network engineers delivering high-quality network designs for critical services-supporting resilience, security and long-term platform strategy.
What you'll be doing:
- Lead the end-to-end design of network solutions, from high-level direction through to detailed design outputs
- Produce and review both high-level and low-level network designs, ensuring they meet availability, scalability, resilience, security and supportability needs
- Define network architectures and establish design principles, standards, blueprints and reference architectures
- Drive network lifecycle planning, including technology refresh, capacity growth and platform evolution
- Carry out technical assurance and design governance, reviewing designs from engineers, suppliers and third-party partners
- Ensure operational support requirements are built into solutions from the start
- Collaborate closely with solution and security architects to create integrated, end-to-end outcomes
- Lead technical investigations, proof of concepts and technology evaluations
What you'll bring:
- Extensive experience designing complex enterprise network solutions across routing/switching and core/distribution/access concepts
- Strong network architecture fundamentals and the ability to translate business requirements into practical network designs
- Proven experience producing and reviewing HLDs and LLDs, with confidence in design governance and technical assurance
- Understanding of NIST and CIS security controls
- Demonstrable experience across several areas such as: Layer 2/Layer 3 design, STP variants, LACP/port channels, first-hop redundancy, OSPF/EIGRP, data centre spine-and-leaf, VXLAN overlays, and/or network security/firewalling
- Hands-on technical leadership with the ability to balance technical, commercial and operational considerations
- A people-focused approach to developing others while maintaining technical authority
Additional information:
- You’ll work within a customer-first team protecting critical national infrastructure, with a culture of clear communication and collaboration