Operational Technical Expert - Communications Engineering Support Group

NATS is the UK’s leading air navigation service provider, handling over 2.4 million flights each year. We provide air traffic control services from two control centres and at airports around the UK. We also provide a wide range of commercial products and solutions internationally. Our people are at the heart of our purpose to advance aviation and keep the skies safe.

Purpose of the Job: The Operational Technical Expert provides expert technical support and administration for systems and applications that enable Air Traffic Management systems/applications. The role is based at Swanwick and focuses on leading operations resilience across the full lifecycle, implementing continual service improvements, and delivering both operational and strategic system management, including support for project delivery.

Principal Accountabilities:

• Maintenance: Responsible for executing administration, maintenance, and service support of designated systems/applications.
• Incident Management: Lead and apply expert domain knowledge to assigned/escalated Incidents, prioritising, diagnosing, resolving and recording them using agreed procedures to restore service resilience.
• Problem Management: Monitor and analyse service events and Incidents to initiate and lead Problem Management activities to continuously improve service provision.
• Competency Management: Gain, hold, and maintain the competencies necessary to control and configure systems/applications, enabling the restoration of technical services, deploy planned changes and carry out planned maintenance.
• System/Application Management: Responsible for approving system configuration changes within the existing design envelope. Managing the safe introduction of new subsystems and services into operational use, assurance assessment that systems/applications remain operational within the design envelope. Oversees the withdrawal of redundant systems. Ensures all transitions are commissioned effectively with minimal impact to operational services.
• Prioritisation and Deconfliction: Responsible for prioritising and deconflicting planned work to ensure a safe delivery of the service.
• Service Configuration: Define, validate and approve configuration changes, ensuring that service configuration records remain accurate, complete and current.
• Document Management: Produce, review, and amend engineering and training instructions. Support colleagues by providing guidance and oversight during document development, and quality assure materials prior to formal review to maintain high standards.
• Service Asset Management: Ensure service assets and applications are managed correctly to support the delivery of technical services at the required service level.
• Safety Culture: Be an advocate for Safety Culture, promoting and advancing best practice, challenging poor behaviours, and ensuring personal health & safety (H&S) by adhering to H&S procedures.
• Training: Support the delivery of required training courses and provide on-the-job training for colleagues, including assessing their technical skills to ensure training objectives are met and operational standards are maintained.
• Duty Engineer Role: Includes responsibilities for the Duty Engineer role (Be the first point of contact for service resolution - To initiate and progress actions to rectify issues relating to service availability and business continuity).
• Continual Service Improvement: Responsible for the identification, coordination and implementation of assigned continual service improvement requests, and for assessment and implementation of assigned changes, to meet customer requirements and improve the service.
• Supplier Engagement: Engage with suppliers regularly to manage service delivery, resolve incidents, address problems, and support project/change activities.
• Stakeholder Management: Responsible for liaising and negotiating with internal and external stakeholders and managing the partnership relationship.
• Project Work: Advise project teams on requirements and activities to ensure strategic alignment. Lead designated work packages, driving delivery and contributing to project success.
• Autonomy: Working in a safety critical environment, supported by defined processes and procedures that are trained and assessed. Liaises directly with Service Management to resolve Incidents and Problems with Service Management retaining oversight. Expected to apply own judgement, experience and expertise to determine the appropriate course of action and lead the resolution of Incidents and Problems outside of defined process and procedures, if required. Provides technical guidance to Service Management decision making.

Job Scope:

• On Call/Out of Hours: These posts are liable for on-call as part of the 24-hour support organisation. There may be the need to provide telephone support or attend out of hours for service restoration to meet agreed service levels, or to deploy service changes in line with the defined procedures.
• Environments: Operates across multiple NATS environments, including Production, Pre-production, Training, Simulation, and Testing and Development environments.

Experience, Qualification & Skills:

• Qualifications: Professional engineering qualification to Higher National Certificate (Level 4 or SQF Level 7) as a minimum Electronics, Telecommunications or Computer Science or other relevant Engineering discipline. In lieu of the above qualifications the candidate will be required to demonstrate one of the following alternative criteria: Relevant lower-level engineering qualifications such as an Apprenticeship coupled with demonstrable engineering experience in a relevant field (May include but not limited to: Military, Rail, other Safety Critical environment). Evidence of substantial experience gained in a relevant transferable environment (such as ATSEP) gained over a significant period. Experience of resolution of incidents, service restoration, incident and problem management of systems and equipment in a Safety Critical environment such as but not limited to Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), Military or Rail. Shall demonstrate an understanding of safety critical systems and the impact they may have within our operational environment.
• Leadership Skills: Strong and effective leadership skills with the proven ability to manage tactically and provide appropriate leadership and support.
• Communication Skills: This role requires effective communications skills, written and oral, commensurate with a range of stakeholders as the role demands, being able to present information to management, peers, customers and suppliers at the appropriate level.
• Decision Making Skills: Ability to make sound and effective decisions and to negotiate and motivate is essential, ensuring outcomes are clearly communicated.
• Problem-Solving Skills: Ability to work calmly, systematically, and analytically when working in a safety-related context.
• Teamwork: Ability to work in teams, take responsibility for their actions, delegate, plan, and schedule activities efficiently.
• Culture and Behaviours: Demonstrates an understanding of working in a safety critical environment, specifically with regards to the importance of establishing a safe and just culture backed by the correct behaviours, attitude and standards.
• Continuous Improvement: Demonstrates an ability to apply continuous service improvement processes.
• Safety-Critical Services & Incident Response: Able to identify and elevate a situation and act as engineer focal point and facilitator until resolution.

Additional Information:

We are seeking a candidate with a strong technical background and a passion for maintaining resilient, high-availability systems. Ideally, you will bring knowledge of voice communication protocols, including E1, AC15, MFC, and VoIP; an understanding of PSTN and ATOTN networks; experience or knowledge of both ground-to-ground and air-to-ground ATC communications; and a solid understanding of IP networking, VoIP technologies, and virtualised environments (desirable).

If you are motivated by the challenge of supporting critical infrastructure and ensuring operational continuity in a safety critical environment, we would be delighted to hear from you. We are proud to offer a fantastic total reward package to help you thrive both personally and professionally.

All staff at NATS are subject to UK Security Vetting and Clearance (SC) and must maintain valid clearance throughout employment. We are unable to progress applications where an applicant does not meet eligibility requirements for clearance. We have adopted agile working to provide greater flexibility and increased choice over working arrangements, with the opportunity for this role to work in our modern office facilities as well as remotely. If you share our passion to advance aviation and keep the skies safe – we would like to hear from you whatever your age, sex, race, faith, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, visible or invisible disability. Individuals that bring different perspectives, skills, life experiences and backgrounds help us be at the forefront of our industry.