Senior Platform Engineer

Salary: £50,000 - 50,000 per year

Requirements:

• Experience designing, deploying, administering, and supporting VMware environments, including ESXi, vCenter, and vSAN.
• Experience administering Windows Server in enterprise environments, including designing, implementing, and supporting Microsoft services such as Active Directory, Group Policy, and PKI.
• Experience supporting VDI environments.
• Strong scripting and automation skills using one or more of PowerShell, Ansible, Bash, Python, or Terraform.
• Experience designing, implementing, maintaining, and supporting secure, resilient, and highly available systems.
• Experience producing technical documentation, operational procedures or runbooks, and implementation plans.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, and engagement skills.
• Demonstrable experience in a senior infrastructure, platform engineering, systems administration, or technical consultancy role.
• Relevant certifications in VMware, Omnissa, Microsoft, or automation technologies are desirable.
• Knowledge of Linux operating systems and a willingness to further develop skills in Linux and related tooling are desirable.
• Experience with Kubernetes and containerised platforms is desirable.
• Experience supporting infrastructure in regulated, public sector, financial, or security-conscious environments is desirable.
• To work at NPL, you will need to obtain BPSS security clearance. For this role in the Time & Frequency department, you will need to have SC clearance with no restrictions or be able to obtain it.
• Nationality, residency, and security requirements may be more tightly defined for work in specific departments; we will ask about these during recruitment.

Responsibilities:

• Support and maintain critical infrastructure across multiple customer environments, with a strong focus on automation and DevOps practices.
• Design, deploy, administer, and optimise virtualisation platforms, end-user computing solutions, servers, and supporting infrastructure services, including Kubernetes orchestration services running on virtual platforms.
• Administer, maintain, and optimise VMware vCenter and vSAN environments.
• Support and develop VDI platforms.
• Manage Windows Server environments, including Active Directory, Trusts, DNS, Group Policy, PKI, certificate services, and security hardening.
• Design, implement, and support resilient, highly available infrastructure solutions.
• Troubleshoot complex infrastructure, platform, and network issues.
• Deliver upgrades, migrations, patching, and lifecycle management activities.
• Develop automation and orchestration capabilities using scripting and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
• Support enterprise security initiatives, including privileged access management, monitoring, logging, and data protection.
• Produce technical documentation, operational procedures, and support runbooks.
• Contribute to disaster recovery, business continuity, and redundancy planning.
• Travel to sites as required to support deployment, implementation, and operational activities.

Technologies:

• Active Directory
• Ansible
• Bash
• DevOps
• Support
• Kubernetes
• Linux
• Network
• PowerShell
• Python
• Security
• Terraform
• VMware
• Windows
• Backbone
• Embedded

More:

We are the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), a world-leading centre of excellence in measurement science, engineering, and technology, supporting prosperity and quality of life in the UK. Our Time & Frequency department is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer specialising in VMware technologies, VDI platforms, automation, systems administration, and infrastructure resilience. This is an opportunity to join our work on the National Timing Centre programme, backed by £180 million in government investment, to develop a resilient time-distribution capability that complements satellite systems and supports essential services. We value diversity and equality of opportunity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds who meet the role criteria. Disabled candidates who satisfy the minimum criteria will be guaranteed an interview under the Disability Confident Scheme. We are committed to employee health and wellbeing, flexible working, social activities, work-life balance, and a broad range of rewards, benefits, and recognition. We are also willing to make reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process.

last updated 39 week of 2026