CNI Automation Lead Engineer

About us

At National Grid, we keep people connected and society moving. But it's so much more than that. National Grid supplies us with the environment to make it happen. As we generate momentum in the energy transition for all, we don't plan on leaving any of our customers in the dark.
So, join us as a CNI Automation Lead Engineer, and find your superpower.

National Grid is hiring a CNI Automation Lead Engineer for our CNI Operations Team
. This role is based at our Warwick office, with hybrid working (1 day per week on-site). You'll play a key role in designing and developing secure, scalable automation solutions that support critical operations across our enterprise.

Join National Grid's CNI Infrastructure Support Team as a CNI Automation Lead Engineer.

In this role, you'll be responsible for designing, implementing, and governing automated solutions across IT infrastructure operations to drive efficiency, scalability, and reliability. You'll lead the automation strategy for operational processes, reducing manual effort, minimizing human error, and accelerating service delivery across data center, network, and platform environments.

You'll take ownership of project life cycles from concept to production, developing automation strategies that enhance quality and productivity while supporting the resilience of our critical systems. If you're passionate about innovation and thrive in a fast-paced environment, this is your opportunity to make a real impact.

• Lead Automation Strategy - Define and own the infrastructure automation roadmap, championing an automation-first mindset across operations.
• Design & Deliver Solutions - Build and maintain scalable automation frameworks for provisioning, configuration, patching, and decommissioning.
• Drive Operational Excellence - Automate high-volume, error-prone tasks to boost efficiency and reliability, integrating monitoring tools for proactive issue detection.
• Set Standards & Governance - Establish best practices for tooling, security, coding standards, and CI/CD, ensuring compliance with regulatory and organizational requirements.
• Collaborate & Influence - Work closely with engineering, operations, and service teams to embed automation into everyday processes.
• Optimize & Innovate - Continuously identify opportunities to improve processes, measure impact, and enhance resilience through automated recovery strategies.

• Strong knowledge of enterprise IT infrastructure (compute, storage, backup, OS: Windows/Linux/Unix, middleware) and virtualization technologies.
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles, lifecycle management, and automation frameworks.
• Hands-on experience with scripting and automation languages, runbook automation, and orchestration tools.
• Solid understanding of Dev Ops, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), and CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure automation.
• Knowledge of security-by-design principles, resilience, disaster recovery, and business continuity in automated environments.
• Excellent troubleshooting and root cause analysis skills across complex automated systems.

• Competitive Salary: circa £55,000 - £65,000 per annum (based on capability, and experience)

Additional benefits:

• A competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%
• You will receive a bonus based on personal and company performance
• Flexible benefits such as a cycle scheme, share incentive plan, technology schemes
• Access to apps such as digital GP service for round the clock access to GP video consultations and NHS repeat prescriptions, wellbeing app to support your health and fitness
• Access to Work + Family Space, providing support and resources for work and family life, including paid emergency childcare and eldercare

More information

• This role is offered on a full time basis.
• This role will require National Security Vetting (NSV) checks.
• We are also offering hybrid /flexible working where travel to the office will be as per business need- 1 day per week on average. Base location for this role will be NG House, Warwick.
• This role closes on 26th January however we…