OT Network Engineer

Job Title: OT Network Engineer Location: Preston area (2-3 days on site to start) Contract: 6 months | Rate: £450-£550 p/d | IR35: Outside TBC

Overview: Seeking an OT Network Engineer to design and maintain a secure, high-performance OT infrastructure across a manufacturing environment. You'll ensure reliable comms for PLCs, HMIs, SCADA, robots, AMRs, BMS/HVAC and ERP-driven automation across multi-VLAN networks, working closely with both OT and IT teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and support OT networks (L2/L3, VLANs, QoS, segmentation).
• Implement OT security controls (zones/conduits, ACLs, firewalls, secure remote access).
• Optimise latency/jitter impacting PLC scan cycles and motion control.
• Integrate and troubleshoot Siemens, Allen-Bradley, Schneider PLC/SCADA systems.
• Support SCADA/HMI (WinCC Unified, FactoryTalk, EcoStruxure).
• Deep knowledge of Profinet, EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP, OPC UA/DA, BACnet.
• Work with IT to align OT designs, manage data flows to ERP/MES/SCADA.
• Own monitoring, documentation, backups, DR and change control.

Required Experience:

• Strong understanding of industrial control principles and SCADA behaviour.
• Practical OT networking experience (segmentation, filtering, deterministic comms).
• Hands-on with key vendor ecosystems (Siemens / AB / Schneider).
• Able to diagnose complex system-network interactions.
• Confident working across both OT and IT teams.

Desirable:

• Robotics, AMRs, conveyors, BMS/HVAC, OT-ERP integrations.
• IEC 62443 knowledge.
• Experience with historians, SQL logging, IIoT gateways.