Senior Network Hosting Architect - freelance - hybrid

Reports to Head of Data Centre and Network Services.

A highly skilled Senior Network Hosting Architect with extensive experience designing, delivering, and optimising large-scale enterprise, internet-facing, cloud, and market-data-driven hosting environments.

This role is accountable for shaping end-to-end hosting network architectures supporting internal enterprise workloads, external internet services, regulated payment platforms, and real‑time market data distribution, ensuring resilience, security, scalability, and operational excellence in performance‑critical and regulated environments.

• deep expertise across traditional networking, multi‑cloud connectivity, low‑latency market data platforms, payment systems, and SaaS‑integrated infrastructure.
• strong architectural leadership, stakeholder engagement, and structured delivery capabilities are essential, with the ability to influence both technical teams and senior business leadership.

• Lead the architecture of secure, scalable, and resilient network hosting platforms across:
• On‑premise data centres and colocation
• Internet‑facing hosting environments
• Hybrid and multicloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP/GSP, Oracle Cloud)
• SaaS‑integrated services (e.g. Microsoft 365, infrastructure SaaS platforms)
• Define hosting strategies supporting market data platforms, payment systems, enterprise applications, and customer‑facing internet services.
• Develop multi‑year network hosting roadmaps aligned to business growth, regulatory expectations, and technology evolution.

• Act as the senior technical authority for complex hosting, connectivity, and L2–L7 network challenges across enterprise, internet, and SaaS‑integrated environments.
• Own architectural governance for market data, payment platform, and cloud hosting designs, ensuring compliance with internal standards and external regulation.
• Provide design assurance for secure inbound/outbound internet connectivity, DDoS‑protected architectures, and Zero Trust access models.

• Architect and operate cloud networking across:
• AWS, Azure, Google Cloud / GSP, and Oracle Cloud
• Hybrid connectivity using Express Route, Direct Connect, Partner Interconnect, and equivalent services
• Design resilient connectivity models for Microsoft 365 and key infrastructure SaaS services, including identity‑aware routing, secure egress, and performance optimisation.
• Define internet hosting patterns covering DMZs, ingress/egress, load balancing, DNS, CDN integration, and secure access.

• Architect, optimise, and support market data hosting environments including:
• Bloomberg, Reuters, and other exchange / data‑vendor platforms
• Low‑latency multicast and unicast distribution
• Cross‑connects within colocation and exchange venues
• Design deterministic, high‑availability network paths for latency‑sensitive trading and analytics workloads.
• Partner with vendors and internal platform teams to ensure performance, resilience, and change control for market data services.

• Design hosting network architectures for payment systems and transactional platforms, ensuring:
• High availability and fault tolerance
• Secure segmentation and encryption
• Compliance with financial and regulatory requirements
• Support connectivity to payment gateways, clearing systems, and third‑party providers, including resilience testing and failure scenarios.

• Lead major hosting and network transformation initiatives, including:
• Data centre and ACI modernisation
• Cloud and SaaS adoption
• Internet hosting and perimeter redesign
• Market data and payment platform migrations
• Drive structured planning, risk management, stakeholder coordination, and controlled delivery.

• Champion continuous optimisation across performance, capacity, routing efficiency, internet ingress/egress, and cloud cost efficiency.
• Lead resolution of high‑severity incidents across enterprise, market data, payment, and internet‑facing platforms.
• Implement automation, observability, and tooling…