Network Security Engineer (SC Cleared) at IO Associates, Reading, £Contract Rate

Location: Mostly remote (UK) with occasional travel to customer sites (Wokingham, Corsham, Farnborough, Warwick; Reading/Berkshire base)
Contract: 6 months (ASAP start - July/August 2026)
Rate: £300/day Outside IR35
Clearance: Active SC clearance required

We're looking for a hands-on Network Security Engineer with active SC to support a leading telecoms end client via a global IT consultancy. This is a predominantly remote contract, with occasional on-site visits to UK customer locations.

• Provide technical ownership of the customer's security infrastructure estate, including processes, documentation, and life cycle management.
• Act as the technical point of contact and escalation for security-related changes and project work, particularly around Firewall rulebases.
• Deliver BAU and project support across both:
  • Physical changes (on-site/hardware) and
  • Remote changes (configuration/support)
• Manage change control activities, customer inventory tracking, hardware/software oversight, and EOL/EOS planning.
• Liaise with vendors for incident resolution and technical support cases.
• Contribute to network/security design work, supporting HLD/LLD production and updates.

• Strong, recent hands-on experience with:
  • Palo Alto (Firewalls/network security)
  • F5
  • Zscaler
• Proven experience supporting enterprise security infrastructure in a change-controlled environment.

• Additional security/network technologies: Checkpoint, Juniper, Bluecoat
• Broader Cisco networking exposure (switching/routing/wireless) plus:
  • QoS/802.1x
  • DNS tooling (eg, Infoblox)
  • VPN technologies (IPsec/SSL VPN/DMVPN)
  • WAN routing protocols
• Telecoms industry experience

Applicants must be eligible to work in the UK and hold active SC clearance.