Principal Network Engineer (Data Centre) in Croydon

Salary: £76,117 (National) or £80,237 (Croydon) plus skills allowance of up to £19,483 pending assessment.

Location: Croydon, Manchester or Liverpool on a hybrid basis.

Advert Close: 11:55 pm Monday 4th May 2026.

Please note that this role requires Security Check (SC) clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years.

What you'll bring to the role:

A Principal Network Engineer (Data Centre) is an accomplished technical leader. You develop the strategic and tactical engineering roadmaps for Data Centre technologies and services in your area of responsibility, ensuring they are future proofed and that the organisation derives maximum value from investment in technologies. You define engineering best practice within the Home Office and inspire others to follow this. You will own the technical operational relationships with suppliers and internal teams, ensuring Data Centre network services are delivered and aligned to industry best practice, regulatory and contractual requirements. You will lead and direct network teams and suppliers in building, managing, transitioning, supporting and maintaining solutions according to departmental policy and strategy. You will work with technical architects to ensure there is continuous improvement to the service catalogue, future designs and service operability. You will lead on overall management activities such as workforce planning, budgeting, technology roadmaps, projects and tasks.

You’ll have a demonstrable passion for Network Engineering with the following skills and proven experience in:

• Core technical concepts, switching, routing, firewalling, load balancing, segmentation and network security.
• Key engineering principles and standards, and the ability to inspire others to follow these.
• Managing and delivering complex technologies within time, cost and quality targets.
• Ensuring all solutions are robust, resilient and appropriately implemented, secured, tested and documented.
• Presenting verbal and written information clearly and accurately in language which is appropriate for different channels and which meets the needs of the user.
• Advising on future technology changes and innovations and defining best practice for network improvements and information security.
• Recent evidence of leading Network design/implementation and/or operations in large scale Private or Public Sector organisations.

Ideally you will also have the following skills or some experience in:

• Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) or technical equivalence in one or more of the following areas: Routing & Switching, Data Centre, Service Provider.

What's in it for you:

• A civil service pension with employer contribution rates of at least 28.97%.
• In-year reward scheme for one-off or sustained exceptional personal or team achievements.
• The ability to potentially adopt flexible working options that suit your work/life balance, plus the opportunity in future to take a career break.
• 25 days annual leave on appointment, rising with service.
• Eight days public holidays, plus one additional privilege day.
• 26 weeks maternity, adoption or shared parental leave at full pay, followed by 13 weeks statutory pay and a further 13 weeks unpaid, after qualifying service.
• Maternity and adoption support leave (also known as paternity leave) of two weeks full pay, after qualifying service.
• Paid leave for fostering approval processes, support when a child is substantively placed with you plus a foster to adopt policy.
• Support for guardians and kinship carers.
• Corporate membership of ‘Employers for Carers’ providing additional information and advice for carers, plus a ‘Carer’s Passport’ to discuss workplace needs and underpin supportive conversations.
• Time off to deal with emergencies and certain other unplanned special circumstances.