Technical Lead; Systems Engineering

Technical Lead - Systems Engineering

Location: Farnborough, or other Leidos UK Offices with flexibility to work from home dependent on business demands

Salary: £61,500 - £78,800

Leidos is seeking an experienced Technical Lead (Systems Engineering) to play a pivotal role on a critical national infrastructure Programme, one of Leidos UK’s flagship delivery programmes supporting a high‑profile government customer.

• Act as Technical Lead for systems engineering activities within assigned work streams or projects.
• Provide authoritative technical direction across on‑premise and cloud‑hosted systems, ensuring coherence across infrastructure, networks, applications and services.
• Lead technical decision‑making, trade‑offs, and design assurance in line with programme and customer requirements.
• Apply Systems Engineering principles across the full engineering lifecycle (V‑Model), including requirements, design, integration, verification and transition to service.
• Own and assure key engineering artefacts, including impact assessments, high‑level and low‑level designs, and technical change documentation.
• Ensure designs are aligned with programme architecture, security constraints, and operational needs.
• Lead the technical impact assessment of Requests for Change (RFCs) and new requirements.
• Clearly define technical scope, dependencies, risks and estimates for change delivery.
• Support Project Managers with technically robust inputs to planning, costing and scheduling.
• Work directly with customer technical stakeholders to elicit, clarify and refine requirements.
• Act as a trusted technical authority, able to explain complex technical topics clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Collaborate effectively across Leidos engineering disciplines and third‑party suppliers.
• Ensure compliance with Leidos engineering standards, programme governance, and security policies.
• Identify technical risks early and define mitigation strategies.
• Support technical reviews, audits, and assurance activities as required.
• Provide technical mentoring and coaching to junior and mid‑level engineers.
• Promote good engineering practice, reuse of patterns, and continuous improvement across the programme.
• Contribute to the development of common ways of working and engineering maturity within the programme.

• Proven experience as a Technical Lead or Senior Systems Engineer on large‑scale, complex IT programmes.
• Strong grounding in Systems Engineering concepts and lifecycle management.
• Broad technical understanding across Infrastructure (compute, storage, virtualisation), Networks, Applications and integrations, Hybrid and/or cloud environments.
• Experience leading technical design, integration and change in a controlled, high‑assurance environment.
• Ability to assess technical risk, manage dependencies, and make sound engineering decisions.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience engaging customers and senior stakeholders.
• Experience working on UK government, defence or critical national infrastructure programmes (desirable).
• Familiarity with IT service delivery environments and operational constraints (desirable).
• Knowledge of security‑driven design and working within secure environments (desirable).
• Experience influencing technical strategy across multi‑supplier ecosystems (desirable).
• Confident technical leader with strong systems thinking.
• Pragmatic, delivery‑focused, and able to balance risk, cost and quality.
• Collaborative and comfortable working across organisational boundaries.
• Passionate about engineering excellence and developing others.

• Opportunity to work on one of Leidos UK’s most significant and visible programmes.
• Exposure to complex, mission‑critical systems with real national impact.
• Competitive salary, benefits, and flexible working arrangements.
• Contributory Pension Scheme.
• Private Medical Insurance.
• 33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays).
• Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme).
• Flexi‑Time Working.

Must be eligible for UK Security Clearance (SC or higher; DV…