Specialist SCADA Engineer - VGC Group

Overview: Specialist SCADA Engineer - Rail Infrastructure. Communication and Information Systems (CIS) business.

Role summary: Your role, and what you’ll be doing: The Specialist Engineer provides technical leadership across the specification, design and deployment of SCADA and control system solutions, setting the direction for how these systems are conceived, engineered and delivered. You will shape architectures, define solution patterns and champion best practice, ensuring our engineering approaches remain robust, scalable and future ready. In this role, you will take ownership of technically complex and first in type solutions - driving reuse where beneficial, and creating new modular components, frameworks and design patterns when the solution demands it. Your influence spans the full engineering lifecycle, from early concept development and bid support through detailed design, integration, verification and delivery into service. This position is ideal for a technically authoritative, systems focused engineer who is comfortable guiding others, solving complex engineering challenges and remaining hands on with the technologies that underpin modern SCADA and control systems.

Responsibilities:

• Leading the development and governance of system architectures, solution patterns and reusable components across all SCADA and control system domains - ensuring approaches are scalable, secure, maintainable and aligned to business best practice.
• Acting as the technical authority for complex or first to type solutions, providing specialist insight in technology such as A8000 RTUs, S7/TIA architectures, SCADA (incl. WinCC OA) behaviours, interface models and cross system integration challenges.
• Driving engineering excellence and consistency by defining standards, frameworks, templates and assurance methods that strengthen solution quality, promote reuse and reduce engineering effort across projects and bids.
• Providing high value specialist input to bids, estimates and solution strategies, ensuring technical approaches are feasible, risk aware, cost effective and reuse aligned.
• Mentoring and guiding engineers and senior engineers, acting as the go to expert for problem solving, system behaviour analysis, interface definition and engineering decision support.
• Assuring compliance with engineering governance, safety, cybersecurity, configuration and lifecycle processes, providing clear technical direction and challenge where needed.
• Representing the business as a subject matter expert, collaborating with SMEs, customers, suppliers and internal teams to shape solutions, resolve complex issues and maintain technical credibility.

Skills, Qualifications & Experience:

• Extensive technical expertise across SCADA and control systems, including Power SCADA, Station Information/M&E supervisory systems, Tunnel Ventilation and route wide engineering management architectures.
• Deep hands-on knowledge of technology such as A8000 RTUs, Siemens S7 PLCs, TIA Portal, and the integration of PLC/RTU based systems with field devices, networks and multisystem interfaces.
• Expert level capability with SCADA platforms, ideally WinCC OA, covering system design, architecture patterns, interface models, data structures and deployment strategies.
• Advanced systems engineering capability - requirements engineering, architecture definition, interface control, integration strategy, verification/validation, and lifecycle governance.
• Proven experience operating as a technical authority, providing design assurance, technical direction, configuration/change governance and specialist review on complex or safety critical systems.
• Strong background shaping and delivering reusable, scalable, maintainable system solutions, including first of type or novel engineering approaches.
• Degree (or equivalent) in a relevant engineering discipline, with Chartered Engineer status (or working towards it), and excellent communication, leadership and problem-solving skills.