Network Technical Architect

Network Technical Architect – OT / Industrial Networks

Location: West Midlands (Minimum 3 days per week onsite, multiple locations)

Contract length: 12 months initially, starting ASAP

Day rate: £560 per day inside IR35

Overview

Our client is seeking an experienced Network Technical Architect to lead the design, integration, and security of industrial and enterprise network environments. This role is focused on OT/IT convergence, supporting industrial sites while maintaining robust security boundaries and aligning with best‐practice architectures for Intelligent Process Automation (IPA).

You will act as the technical authority for network design across complex OT and IT landscapes, contributing to feasibility assessments, solution designs, and delivery assurance across multiple projects and programmes.

Key Responsibilities

Network Design & Architecture

• Design and govern resilient, highly available LAN, WAN, and SD‐WAN architectures tailored for industrial and operational environments
• Develop reference architectures, standards, patterns, and roadmaps aligned to industry best practice and enterprise strategy
• Produce robust HLDs and LLDs, integration designs, and security models covering functional and non‐functional requirements

OT / IT Convergence

• Lead the integration of Industrial Control Systems (ICS) with enterprise IT networks, ensuring secure segmentation and controlled data flows
• Support OT/IT convergence initiatives while maintaining clear security boundaries and compliance

Security & Segmentation

• Design and manage industrial network security solutions, including Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco ASA, and proxy/SSL implementations
• Implement zones and segmentation models, monitoring, logging, and error‐handling frameworks suitable for OT environments

Technical Authority & Delivery Support

• Provide technical analysis and feasibility input to business cases and pre‐sales activities
• Represent network designs at Design Authority forums, demonstrating fitness for purpose and compliance with standards
• Support delivery teams through design reviews, peer testing, UAT, and deployment into production
• Troubleshoot complex network architecture issues and propose pragmatic, cost‐effective improvements

Stakeholder & Vendor Engagement

• Act as lead technical consultant across assigned programmes and IPA initiatives
• Work closely with internal stakeholders, 3rd‐party vendors, and suppliers to ensure solution compliance
• Lead and participate in technical workshops, design reviews, and assessment panels

Skills & Experience Required

• Proven experience as a Network Architect / Technical Architect delivering secure network designs across OT and IT environments
• Typically 10–15+ years in network engineering, with 3+ years explicitly in OT / industrial networks
• Strong understanding of ICS environments, including PLCs, DCS, and industrial network architectures
• Experience with LAN, WAN, SD‐WAN, MPLS, BGP, OSPF, and enterprise routing & switching
• Deep knowledge of industrial and enterprise firewalls (Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco ASA, Check Point)
• Experience with F5 BIG‐IP load balancers and enterprise proxy / SSL solutions
• Hands‐on troubleshooting across Cisco Nexus and Enterprise switching environments
• Strong understanding of IPsec, GRE, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, authentication (SAML, SSO, LDAP, Active Directory)
• Experience producing HLD / LLD documentation, architecture diagrams (Visio / Lucid), and technical specifications
• Comfortable working in Agile and waterfall project environments within complex, regulated organisations

If you have strong experience designing industrial and OT network architectures and enjoy operating as a trusted technical authority, we’d like to hear from you. Please apply promptly to be considered.