Technical Advisor Associate

Requirements of the role

This role sits within Ofcom’s Network and Communications Technology Team (N&C Tech). The N&C Tech team in Ofcom includes technologists across the areas of network infrastructure, resilience, and security topics, and range of wireless and wireline technology contexts. The team supports initiatives across the rest of Ofcom as well as having its own objectives in the areas of ensuring reliable and secure networks and communications services in the UK.

The N&C Tech team are a part of the Network and Communications Groups, with responsibilities in telecoms, postal sectors and digital markets. The N&C Group sits alongside other directorates including: Spectrum, Broadcasting and Media, Online Safety, Strategy, Economics, and Legal.

The Purpose of the Role

• As society has become increasingly dependent on communications services, and telecommunications technologies and infrastructure continue to change at a rapid pace, Ofcom needs technical expertise and market experience in the telecommunications industry in order to support Ofcom in its policy work as well as monitoring the state of play in the industry as well as individual communications providers.
• The purpose of this role (Technical Advisor Associate, Network Resilience) is to help maintain and improve the reliability of communications networks and services in the UK by using your technical expertise to support Ofcom’s colleagues from all the other directorates in achieving our goals together.

Your Key Responsibilities

• The focus of this role is to assess and monitor how communications providers’ apply the architecture & design ‘good practices’ contained in Ofcom’s ‘Network and Service Resilience Guidance for Communications Providers’ with the aim of achieving appropriate levels of reliability. A mix of pro-active assessment and re-active assessment (following network or service outage incidents) will require an understanding of network planning, operations, or design principles typically used in fixed, mobile, or IP transport communications networks. The role includes keeping up to date with new technology evolution and network deployment models.
• Making use of your technical expertise, the successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the ability to read, listen to, digest, and distil technical and procedural information from communications providers (CPs) and then communicate key information and insights to others in Ofcom. You will regularly participate in meetings with CPs and write to them to seek clarification where needed. You may contribute to changes in Ofcom’s procedures on these topics so that Ofcom’s communications network & service resilience regulation is effective, appropriate, and measurable.
• Following network or service incidents (outages or impairments), you will be involved in triaging and helping to assess whether a CP may have fallen short in the use of architecture, design, and operational ‘good practices’.
• Working alongside other members of the N&C Tech team, you will be key in supporting the network and service resilience assurance programme to ensure that Communications Providers follow good network architecture & design practices for service availability & reliability.
• You will also have the opportunity to collaborate across other areas of Ofcom, such as market research, to ensure our insights and evaluation are consistent with Ofcom’s wider work.
• What you’ll need to be successful in this role

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