Principal Network Architect | Managed Services

📌 Principal Network Architect | Managed Services

📌 Birmingham

📌 £75,000 to £90,000 + 15% Bonus

📌 10% Pension + Company Car or £5,500 Car Allowance

📌 Private Family Healthcare + Share Equity + Life Assurance

📌 Hybrid Working | 3 On Site | 2 Remote

** The business will support the application for security clearance. Due to the nature of the work, the individual must be eligible for SC and NPPV clearance, which requires UK nationality or 5+ consecutive years living and working in the UK. **

The Role In a Nutshell

Act as the senior in-life technical authority across one of the UK's largest managed services portfolios consisting over 2,000 enterprise customers. You'll lead network engineering teams, shape technical strategy, and own the operational standard for complex, multi-vendor environments where both stability and innovation are non-negotiable.

The Business

One of the UK's most established communications and technology businesses, serving large enterprise and public-sector customers with mission-critical networks, voice and managed services. With significant annual investment in research and development and a substantial UK engineering workforce, this business has the scale, the technology and the customer base to take on the country's most complex programmes. The business invests genuinely in career development, world-class training, and the kind of work that accelerates a technical career.

The Role

You'll be the senior technical voice across a portfolio of complex, multi-vendor managed service customers, providing direction, judgement, and authority across daily operations, strategy, and incident-critical moments. The role blends technical leadership, team direction, and stakeholder engagement up to MD level, sitting at the centre of a 24/7 managed environment.

You'll lead a network engineering team and drive product roadmaps in highly ambiguous, multi-vendor technical landscapes (Cisco, Aruba, Juniper, Arista, Fortinet, SDN). You'll scope technical deliverables, lead the resolution of major incidents, pre-empt risks before they impact customers, and direct critical interdisciplinary projects from inception to benefits realisation. You'll also mentor engineers, shape policies and procedures, and lead continuous improvement across Network Engineering processes.

This is a Principal-level role. The expectation is technical depth, the ability to set direction in ambiguity, and the credibility to win trust at the most senior stakeholder level.

Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience supporting a 24/7 live managed customer solution across networking technologies, working with multiple third parties and suppliers
• Vendor technical accreditation to at least Professional standard (Expert highly desirable)
• Strong working knowledge of ITIL practices
• Proven ability to lead, mentor and develop network engineering teams
• Confident communicating complex technical issues, approaches and visions up to MD level
• Eligible to obtain and hold SC, NPPV and other required security clearances

The following would be an advantage:

• In-depth understanding of network and software-defined networking technologies (Cisco, Aruba, Juniper, Arista, Fortinet)
• Familiarity with emerging technologies across the full IT spectrum
• Experience driving DevOps and Agile through the proposition lifecycle
• Vendor Expert-level accreditation

Your Responsibilities

• Direct network engineering teams across system design, build, testing, validation, maintenance, and ongoing support
• Define product roadmaps in complex, multi-vendor technical environments
• Lead the scoping of technical deliverables and benefits realisation across large, complex customer solutions
• Manage complex incidents, pre-empt risks, and coordinate resolution to keep delivery on track
• Direct critical, interdisciplinary projects adhering to policy, regulatory and best-practice standards
• Shape policies and procedures aligned to information systems goals
• Lead the implementation of core and cloud infrastructure security across the customer estate
• Mentor, coach and develop the team to build current and future capability
• Lead continuous improvement across Network Engineering processes
• Provide senior consultancy and technical input on data protection and cloud capabilities for customers

Other skills required:

• **Technical Authority** - Trusted as the senior in-life voice on complex, multi-vendor solutions, able to articulate design and rationale end-to-end
• **Customer Focus** - Drives proactive, pre-emptive, best-in-class service across a multi-customer managed portfolio
• **Leadership Through Change** - Leads teams through transformation and continuous change without losing pace or quality
• **Decision-Making Under Ambiguity** - Takes well-evaluated risks, makes audacious calls, and executes plans under difficult circumstances
• **Stakeholder Influence** - Translates complex technical issues into clear, simple language for audiences up to MD level

Benefits

• £75,000 to £90,000 base salary

• 15% annual bonus

• Company car or £5,500 per annum cash allowance

• Private healthcare for self and family

• 10% pension contribution

• Share equity and share-save scheme

• Life assurance

• Generous annual leave with bank holidays

• Family-friendly leave policies

• World-class training and development opportunities

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