Head of Network Operations

This role requires a technical leader to own the Global Network Engineering function within a global financial services organisation. This is a pivotal leadership role where you'll shape technology direction, define architectural standards, and drive complex transformation programmes across our enterprise network infrastructure.

You'll lead a team of senior engineers distributed across the UK, India, and Asia-Pacific, serving as the technical authority for network architecture, design governance, and innovation. This role offers significant visibility and influence, working closely with enterprise architecture, security, and business stakeholders to deliver robust, compliant, and future-ready network solutions.

The Role

• Technical Leadership & Governance
  • Define and enforce technical standards, reference architectures, and reusable patterns across campus, data centre, and cloud network environments.
  • Lead the design review and design authority process, serving as final approver for complex multi-domain solutions.
  • Drive architecture for critical initiatives including cloud migration, network segmentation, and regulatory compliance programmes.
  • Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies in AI, cloud networking, automation, and DevOps, translating proof-of-concepts into production-ready architectures.
  • Act as senior escalation point for major incidents and participate in global management on-call rotation.
  • Champion the adoption of AI-enabled capabilities across network engineering, observability, and operations.
  • Define use cases and implementation standards for AI-guided network engineering and AIOps.
  • Drive measurable improvements in automation, reliability, and operational efficiency through AI adoption.
• Stakeholder Collaboration
  • Partner with enterprise architecture, security, and infrastructure teams to ensure solutions meet non-functional requirements.
  • Collaborate with product teams to support domain-specific designs and ensure consistent technical alignment.
  • Contribute to technology roadmap planning, ensuring technical direction aligns with business strategy and compliance obligations.
  • Lead, mentor, and develop a team of 6-12 senior network engineers across multiple geographies.
  • Drive team capability through structured skills development, technical upskilling, and certification planning.
  • Manage work allocation, backlog planning, and delivery cadence to ensure predictable execution.
  • Coach high-potential team members and nurture future technical leaders.

Requirements

• 8+ years serving as a domain or enterprise-level architecture authority with responsibility for approving high-complexity cross-domain designs.
• 5+ years leading globally distributed technical teams across UK, India, and Asia-Pacific regions.
• Proven track record delivering large-scale, multi-domain network migrations and transformation programmes in highly regulated environments.
• Deep technical expertise across enterprise networking: routing, switching, data centre fabrics, SD-WAN, load balancing, network security, Zero Trust, and identity-based segmentation.
• Strong knowledge of cloud networking (AWS/Azure), Infrastructure as Code, and DevOps-aligned engineering practices.
• Experience defining and implementing automation strategies with measurable improvements in speed, reliability, and cost efficiency.
• Hands-on experience architecting and delivering AI-guided or AI-augmented network engineering capabilities.

Key Skills

• Ability to interpret business requirements and translate into actionable architectures and technical designs.
• Experience shaping both high-level and low-level designs across the full design-to-deployment lifecycle.
• Proven success in cloud adoption programmes and infrastructure modernisation initiatives.
• Knowledge of regulatory frameworks and compliance requirements within financial services (DORA experience highly desirable).
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills at senior levels.
• Experience managing vendors and handling senior-level technical escalations.

Package

• Performance bonus: Up to 30% of base salary.
• Comprehensive benefits: Pension, private healthcare, life assurance, and flexible benefits platform.
• Flexible working: Hybrid working model with modern London office facilities.
• Professional development: Significant investment in training, certifications, and conference attendance.
• Global impact: Opportunity to shape network architecture for a major financial services organisation with significant technology investment.