{"id":2038713,"url":"https://alion.io/job/methods-senior-network-architect","title":"Senior Network Architect","company":{"id":6935,"name":"Methods","domain":"methods.co.uk","url":"https://alion.io/company/methods-business-and-digital-technology","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workable","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":92,"open_postings":32,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.313,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":43,"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"}},"role":"Networking","role_family":"Networking","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Bristol, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":75000,"max_usd":180000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":139},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-07T17:07:03Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-07","last_verified_at":"2026-10-11T00:08:13Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":3,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":3},"description":"Methods Business and Digital Technology Limited\nMethods is a £100M+ IT Services Consultancy who has partnered with a range of central government departments and agencies to transform the way the public sector operates in the UK. Established over 30 years ago and UK-based, we apply our skills in transformation, delivery, and collaboration from across the Methods Group, to create end-to-end business and technical solutions that are people-centred, safe, and designed for the future.\nOur human touch sets us apart from other consultancies, system integrators and software houses - with people, technology, and data at the heart of who we are, we believe in creating value and sustainability through everything we do for our clients, staff, communities, and the planet.\nWe support our clients in the success of their projects while working collaboratively to share skill sets and solve problems. At Methods we have fun while working hard; we are not afraid of making mistakes and learning from them.\nPredominantly focused on the public-sector, Methods is now building a significant private sector client portfolio.\nMethods was acquired by the Alten Group in early 2022.\nAbout the role\nWe are seeking a Senior Network Architect to assess, document and improve enterprise network architecture in a secure defence environment. You will combine detailed technical investigation with clear design documentation and practical recommendations for operational resilience.\nYour initial assignment will be to support the Network team with a Defence programme. The estate spans two data centres and includes Cisco ACI, Cisco routers, Cisco ASA firewalls and F5 load balancers. This is a permanent Methods position; the initial assignment start date and delivery schedule will be agreed with the client.\nWorking alongside the Programme’s Architecture and Network support teams, you will establish an accurate view of the existing network, recommend improvements with minimal operational risk and assess the changes needed to support true active/active connectivity between the two data centres.\nWhat you will do\n· Review the live network implementation, configurations and legacy design material across both data centres, identifying gaps between documented and actual operation.\n· Produce accurate current-state High Level Designs and Low Level Designs using the existing templates, supported by clear topology diagrams, connectivity flows and technical dependencies.\n· Review Cisco ACI, routing, firewall and load-balancing arrangements with the Architecture and Network support teams to understand service connectivity and operational constraints.\n· Produce a Network Review and Recommendation Report identifying practical improvements that can be made without significant redesign and with minimal risk to live services.\n· Assess opportunities to make better use of Cisco ACI application-centric capabilities, including application relationships, segmentation and policy design.\n· Present recommended improvements as a prioritised roadmap showing sequencing, interdependencies, implementation considerations and service impact.\n· Produce a Network Disaster Recovery Capability Report assessing the changes required for true active/active connectivity between the two data centres.\n· Explain current connectivity limitations, proposed implementation approaches, risks to existing services and any additional hardware, software or licensing requirements.\n· Lead technical review discussions, resolve design comments and secure review and sign-off of design documentation from the Client’s Architecture and Network teams.\n· Maintain controlled technical documentation and supporting evidence, contribute to risk and issue reporting, and submit deliverables through agreed secure channels.\nRequirements\nSkills and experience\n· Strong enterprise network architecture experience, including assessing existing implementations and producing accurate High Level Designs and Low Level Designs.\n· Hands-on Cisco ACI experience, including fabric architecture, tenants, VRFs, bridge domains, endpoint groups and contracts, with an understanding of application-centric policy design.\n· Strong Cisco routing knowledge and practical understanding of IP addressing, routing protocols, segmentation and connectivity between data centres.\n· Experience reviewing Cisco ASA firewall configurations, traffic flows, access policies, NAT and high-availability arrangements.\n· Experience with F5 load balancers, including traffic management, health monitoring, resilience and dependencies on surrounding network services.\n· Experience assessing network disaster recovery and active/active designs, including failure scenarios, failover behaviour, routing symmetry and stateful service dependencies.\n· Ability to investigate live configurations safely, identify technical constraints and recommend proportionate changes with clear implementation and operational impacts.\n· Strong technical writing, diagramming and stakeholder communication skills, with experience taking designs through formal review and approval.\nDesirable experience\n· Cisco ACI deployments spanning multiple data centres and migration towards application-centric policies.\n· Network resilience testing, recovery planning and assessment of hardware, software and licensing options.\n· Defence, government or other regulated environments with controlled technical data and formal configuration management.\n· Relevant Cisco, F5 or network architecture certifications, such as CCNP or CCIE.\nHow you will work\nYou will work independently on technical investigation while collaborating closely with the Client’s architects, network engineers and other suppliers. You will distinguish verified findings from assumptions, explain options and trade-offs clearly, and raise access constraints, risks and delivery dependencies early.\nThe initial assignment focuses on assessment, design documentation and recommendations. Any implementation or production configuration changes must be separately agreed and authorised through the Client’s change controls. Maintain document identifiers, revision history and security markings in line with the client’s data-management requirements.\nLocation and security\nThis role will require you to have or be willing to go through Security Clearance. As part of the onboarding process candidates will be asked to complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard; details of the evidence required to apply may be found on the government website Gov.UK. If you are unable to meet this and any associated criteria, then your employment may be delayed, or rejected . Details of this will be discussed with you at interview. \nSecurity Clearance\nMinimum UK SC clearance required\nLocation\nWork is expected at Bristol 3 to 4 days a week for the first 3 months but this this will reduce thereafter. Any hybrid working depends on client approval, access arrangements and security restrictions; attendance at other authorised sites may be required.\nWhat success looks like\n· Current-state High Level and Low Level Designs that accurately reflect the operational network and are reviewed and signed off by the Client’s Architecture and Network teams.\n· A clear improvement report and sequenced roadmap that identifies practical changes, their dependencies and their operational risks.\n· A disaster recovery capability report that explains the route to active/active network connectivity, including constraints, implementation impacts and hardware, software or licensing needs.\nThe SSOW targets design documentation and the recommendation report within one month, and the disaster recovery report within two months. The delivery baseline will be confirmed with the client at mobilisation.\nBenefits\nBy joining us you can expect:\nAutonomy to develop and grow your skills and experience \nBe part of exciting project work that is making a difference in society \nStrong, inspiring and thought-provoking leadership \nA supportive and collaborative environment. \nAs well as this, we offer:\nDevelopment access to LinkedIn Learning, a management development programme and training \nWellness 24/7 Confidential employee assistance programme \nSocial - Breakfast Tuesdays, Thirsty Thursdays and Pizza on the last Thursday of each month as well as commitment to charitable causes \nTime off 25 days a year \nPension Salary Exchange Scheme with 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution \nDiscretionary Company Bonus based on company and individual performance \nLife Assurance of 4 times base salary \nPrivate Medical Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included) \nWorldwide Travel Insurance which is non-contributory (spouse and dependants included)","description_format":"text","description_chars":8712,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Health insurance","Hybrid work"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United Kingdom","iso":"GB","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Cybersecurity"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-07T17:07:03Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":43,"reasons":["conf:1","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/methods-senior-network-architect","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/methods-senior-network-architect.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-11T02:13:00Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":3404,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":1596,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-10-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":6935},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=6935"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmethods-senior-network-architect"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmethods-senior-network-architect"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmethods-senior-network-architect"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/methods-senior-network-architect\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmethods-senior-network-architect"}]}