CNI Infrastructure Engineer in London

At National Grid, we keep people connected and society moving. National Grid supplies us with the environment to make it happen. As we generate momentum in the energy transition for all, we don’t plan on leaving any of our customers in the dark. So, join us as a CNI Infrastructure Engineer, and find your superpower.

National Grid is hiring a CNI Infrastructure Engineer for our CNI Operations team. This role is based at our Warwick office, with hybrid working (1 day per week on-site). You’ll play a key role in designing, developing and supporting secure, scalable infrastructure platforms that underpin critical operations across our enterprise.

Join National Grid’s CNI Operations Team as a CNI Infrastructure Engineer, where you’ll be at the heart of keeping the UK’s critical national infrastructure running safely, securely, and at scale. This is a role with real purpose — the work you do will directly support systems that millions of people rely on every day.

As a CNI Infrastructure Engineer, you’ll play a key role in building, maintaining, and optimising the core technologies that power our organisation. From platforms and servers to networks, storage, and backups, you’ll ensure our estate is highly available, high‑performing, resilient, and secure.

This is a hands-on engineering position where you’ll combine strong technical expertise with smart automation, problem‑solving, and a proactive approach to improvement. You’ll help design, support, and enhance the underlying infrastructure that enables our business‑critical applications and services to operate seamlessly — 24/7.

If you’re driven by meaningful work, thrive in a technically diverse environment, and want to make a real impact on systems that matter, this is the role for you.

What You’ll Do

• Take ownership of our core server estate, managing and optimising physical and virtual servers — including cutting‑edge hypervisors like VMware VCF and ESXi.
• Bring infrastructure to life through automation, using Terraform and Ansible to build, deploy, and manage platforms at scale.
• Keep our data flowing and protected by administering enterprise‑grade storage solutions (SAN/NAS, object storage) and driving reliability with technologies such as Veeam.
• Engineer high‑performing, resilient networks, configuring and fine‑tuning technologies across LAN/WAN, SD‑WAN, VLANs, BGP/OSPF, VPNs, load balancers, firewalls, and more.
• Be the heartbeat of platform reliability, delivering proactive monitoring, rapid troubleshooting, performance optimisation, and smart capacity planning.
• Jump into action when it matters most, contributing to incident response, conducting deep‑dive RCAs, and supporting 24/7 on‑call environments that keep critical systems running.
• Automate the manual and eliminate the mundane, building self‑service tools and workflows that boost efficiency and empower teams.
• Champion security at every layer, implementing robust controls across patching, vulnerability management, hardening, zero‑trust, IAM, and network segmentation.
• Partner with brilliant minds across the organisation, working closely with SRE, security, application, and architecture teams to deliver new services, large‑scale changes, and complex migrations.
• Help shape our future resilience, contributing to DR strategy, running test exercises, and designing architectures built for high availability and fault tolerance.

About You

You’re someone who thrives in complex technical environments and loves getting under the hood of enterprise infrastructure. You bring a blend of solid engineering fundamentals, problem‑solving instincts, and a curiosity to keep learning. Here’s what you’ll bring to the team:

• A deep understanding of enterprise IT infrastructure — from compute and storage to backups, networks, operating systems (Windows/Linux), and middleware.
• Strong knowledge of Active Directory Domain Services, with the ability to design, manage, and troubleshoot directory‑based environments.
• Hands‑on virtualisation expertise, especially with VMware vSphere and VCF.
• A confident grasp of networking essentials, including TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, routing, switching, and firewalls.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, using tools like Terraform and Ansible to build and manage environments more efficiently.
• Scripting capabilities in PowerShell, Bash, or Python — and a willingness to automate anything that can (and should!) be automated.
• Familiarity with backup and disaster recovery strategies, high‑availability designs, and business continuity principles.
• Knowledge of modern storage solutions such as vSAN, NAS, and object storage platforms.
• A proven track record of solving tricky, multi‑layered technical issues, often across several technologies at once.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear, understandable language for non‑technical stakeholders.

What You’ll Get

Competitive Salary: circa £48,000 – £57,000 per annum (based on capability, and experience)

Additional benefits:

• A competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%
• You will receive a bonus based on personal and company performance
• Flexible benefits such as a cycle scheme, share incentive plan, technology schemes
• Access to apps such as digital GP service for round the clock access to GP video consultations and NHS repeat prescriptions, wellbeing app to support your health and fitness
• Access to Work + Family Space, providing support and resources for work and family life, including paid emergency childcare and eldercare

This role is offered on a full time basis. This role will require National Security Vetting (NSV) checks. We are also offering hybrid/flexible working where travel to the office will be as per business need - 1 day per week on average. Base location for this role will be NG House, Warwick. This role closes on 23rd February however we strongly encourage candidates to submit their application as early as possible.

Please note that in most cases, National Grid is unable to offer sponsorship for employment under the UK points-based immigration system. As such, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship now or in the future under the UK points-based immigration system. However, in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear and demonstrable need for specialist skills that cannot be sourced from the local labour market, National Grid may consider offering sponsorship. All applications are welcome from candidates who meet these requirements, regardless of race, nationality, or ethnic origin.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

National Grid is an equal opportunity employer that values a broad diversity of talent, knowledge, experience and expertise. We foster a culture of inclusion that drives employee engagement to deliver superior performance to the communities we serve. National Grid is proud to be an affirmative action employer. We encourage minorities, women, individuals with disabilities and protected veterans to join the National Grid team.

At National Grid, we work towards the highest standards in everything we do, including how we support, value and develop our people. Our aim is to encourage and support employees to thrive and be the best they can be. We celebrate the unique differences people bring into our organisation, and welcome and encourage applicants with diverse experiences and backgrounds, and offer flexible and tailored support, at home and in the office.

Our goal is to drive, develop and operate our business in a way that results in a more inclusive culture. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, the innovation that comes with having diverse teams and business need. We are committed to building a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve and provide a working environment where everyone feels valued, respected, fairly treated, and able to reach their full potential.