Technical Architect / Network Lead

Network Automation Lead / Technical Architect / Network Lead / Automation Lead

Birmingham Contract to March 2027 Up to 745 per day (Umbrella)

REED Technology are recruiting for a Network Automation Transformation Lead to join a major enterprise transformation programme focused on modernising and migrating multiple legacy data centre environments into a new automation-first platform.

The organisation has engineering teams in place to build and operate the automation tooling. They are now looking for an experienced technical leader who can define the migration approach, establish automation standards, govern delivery, and ensure large-scale network migrations are executed safely through repeatable and validated automation frameworks. The successful person will be responsible for helping shape and lead an automation-led migration capability where network changes are deployed through controlled automation rather than traditional manual engineering processes.

You'll be working on a long-term transformation programme involving multiple generations of legacy infrastructure, helping to drive migration at scale whilst reducing risk and maintaining operational stability.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the development of automation-driven network migration approaches.
• Define and govern automation standards, deployment methods and ways of working.
• Establish testing, validation and rollback frameworks for large-scale migrations.
• Drive CI/CD and automated delivery practices across network transformation activities.
• Work collaboratively with architects, engineers, operations and programme teams.
• Ensure migration activities are repeatable, auditable and aligned with governance requirements.
• Support large-scale data centre transformation and infrastructure modernisation initiatives.
• Identify risks, dependencies and technical challenges across migration workstreams.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance across automation-enabled delivery.

Skills and Experience

• Led large-scale network or data centre migration programmes.
• Implemented automation-led deployment strategies.
• Built or governed automation frameworks used for infrastructure delivery.
• Defined testing, validation and rollback approaches for enterprise migrations.
• Worked within complex, highly governed or regulated environments.
• Led engineering teams delivering network transformation programmes.
• Worked across enterprise networking, data centre and cloud environments.

Technical Background

You do not need to be a software developer.

However, you should have experience or familiarity with areas such as:

• Network Automation
• Infrastructure as Code
• Ansible
• Python
• Terraform
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Git-based deployment workflows
• Cisco Data Centre technologies
• EVPN / VXLAN
• Cisco Nexus
• Network transformation and migration methodologies

If you've previously led automation-enabled network migrations and can combine technical credibility with governance, delivery leadership and transformation experience, we'd welcome a confidential conversation.