Principal infrastructure engineer

Band 8b · Infrastructure engineer · 600 job evaluation points

UK GDaD PCF level: Principal infrastructure engineer

Most often performed at Civil Service grade G7 or G6.

A principal infrastructure engineer is an accomplished technical leader.
At this role level, you will:
develop strategic and tactical engineering roadmaps for technologies and services in your area of responsibility, ensuring they're future-proofed and that the organisation derives maximum value from investment in technologies
potentially own the operational relationships with suppliers, ensuring services and products are delivered and aligned to industry best practice and regulatory and contractual requirements
work with technical architects to translate the architectural designs into operations and support technical architects in operationalising the designs
lead and direct infrastructure specialist teams in building, managing, supporting and maintaining solutions according to departmental policy (if taking a managerial path)

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

Responsibilities

Develop the infrastructure strategy and roadmaps, so that investment delivers resilient, secure, and sustainable hosting for clinical services.
Own operational relationships with strategic infrastructure and network suppliers.
Advise senior leaders on infrastructure risk, including end-of-life technology, single points of failure, and cyber resilience.
Set recovery time and recovery point objectives for clinical systems with service owners, and make sure infrastructure can meet them.
Lead the infrastructure engineering profession across the organisation and develop its capability.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Coding and scriptingUK GDaD PCF	Working (2)	You can: interact with, read and write code carry out baseline repair activities
Information securityUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: design solutions and services with security controls included, specifically engineered to mitigate security threats
IT infrastructureUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: design and implement infrastructure solutions and services, for example, networking and physical infrastructure, commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software, open source packages and solutions, or virtual and cloud computing
Modern development standardsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: identify and apply modern development standards to support complex projects and programmes lead others in applying modern development standards
Ownership and initiativeUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: take accountability for issues that occur and be proactive in searching for potential problems achieve excellent user outcomes
Problem managementUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: ensure that the right actions are taken to investigate, resolve and anticipate problems co-ordinate the team to investigate problems, implement solutions and take preventive measures
Service focusUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: see the bigger picture by taking groups of services and investigating how to get the best of underlying services
Systems designUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: design systems characterised by high levels of risk, impact, and business or technical complexity control system design practice within an enterprise or industry architecture influence industry-based models for the development of new technology applications develop effective implementation and procurement strategies, consistent with business needs ensure adherence to relevant technical strategies, policies, standards and practices
Systems integrationUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: establish standards and procedures across a service product life cycle, including the development product life cycle, and can ensure that practitioners adhere to these manage resources to ensure that the systems integration function works effectively
Technical understandingUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: show a thorough understanding of the technical concepts required for the role, and can explain how these fit into the wider technical landscape
TestingUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: manage testing activities within development or integration activities manage risks and take preventative action when risks become unacceptable manage customer relations
Troubleshooting and problem resolutionUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: use lateral thinking to break a problem down into its component parts to identify and diagnose root causes troubleshoot and identify problems across different technology capabilities including computing, storage, networking, physical infrastructure, software, commercial-off-the-shelf software (COTS) and open source software
Understanding health and care servicesThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: analyse how a service fits into care pathways across organisations work with clinicians, care staff, and patients to shape digital services explain the effect of digital decisions on care, safety, and staff workload
Information governance and data protectionThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: lead data protection impact assessments and information sharing agreements advise teams on lawful basis, consent, confidentiality, and retention investigate incidents and recommend improvements
Security operationsThis reference	Working (2)	You can: monitor alerts and triage them using runbooks gather evidence and escalate events tune simple detection rules under guidance
Vulnerability managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: set the vulnerability management policy and its targets report technical security risk to senior leaders
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Working (2)	You can: take part in hazard workshops and contribute to a hazard log follow the clinical risk management process for your work provide evidence for a clinical safety case, such as test results
Organisational risk managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: run the risk process for a directorate or programme assess risks against the risk appetite and escalate them report on risks to committees
People managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: line manage a team, setting objectives and running appraisals support wellbeing and manage attendance, performance, and conduct plan the team's development and succession
Budget managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: hold and manage a budget, forecasting and explaining variances build a business case with costs and benefits

Typical qualifications and experience

Extensive experience of leading infrastructure engineering across multiple teams or organisations.

Band 8b outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge across several disciplines or a large service.
Autonomy: Shapes policy and strategy for a large area.
Scope: Several services or teams, or a principal-level discipline.
Leadership: Manages managers, or is the principal authority in a discipline.
Accountability: Several services, their staff, and their budgets.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	5	Forms long-term strategic plans, with uncertainty and effects across the organisation.	60
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	1	Helps patients, clients, or relatives during incidental contact.	4
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	4	Holds or sets the budget for a department or service, or buys or maintains its assets.	32
Responsibility for people	4	Line manages a function or department, designs training programmes as a main duty, or delivers a full range of HR services.	32
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	2	Regularly does research, development, trials, or equipment and system testing as part of the job.	12
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	1	Rare exposure, or occasional indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	5
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8b: 585 to 629)			600