Blacktip Consultancy
Senior Physical Infrastructure Consultant - Datacentre
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Senior Physical Infrastructure Consultant - Datacentre
Independent by design.
Location: UK, Hybrid
Travel: Regular, to locations across the UK and Europe, occasionally wider EMEA & US
Role: Full-time, permanent
Reports to: Technical Director — Physical Infrastructure
Package: Competitive
The Role
You will lead the physical infrastructure consultancy on datacentre and mission-critical projects: concept and detailed designs, specifications, budgets, equipment schedules and construction-stage support, delivered to RIBA stages (or local equivalent). You will own your design from concept through to handover, represent Blacktip in client workshops, design-team meetings and onsite.
The scope is the physical layer of the datacentre infrastructure: technology spaces and their resilient configurations, meet-me rooms, main and building communications rooms, carrier service entrances, campus and inter-building fibre backbone, horizontal distribution across data halls and support space, containment and pathways coordinated with the MEP design, cabinet and frame layouts, grounding and bonding, and the identification and administration schemes that keep a live campus manageable. You will define the spatial, power, cooling and routing constraints for every system, and work alongside our security, active network and building-technology disciplines and our production team to deliver coordinated, build-ready packages.
Your major focus will be hyperscale however you could also be involved in mission-critical environments. Our projects are among the largest datacentre programmes in Europe, multi-building campuses, delivered at pace, under NDA, to the operator’s own standards. You will have done this before, client-side on hyperscale campuses or inside a major cloud operator’s own infrastructure delivery organisation, and you will be fluent in working to an operator’s reference designs and deployment templates including knowing when, and how, to challenge them.
You will report to the Technical Director – Physical Infrastructure and help maintain the technical standards the team is known for. You will also help grow client relationships through strong technical input, securing and developing long-term relationships, maximising repeat business, and spotting new opportunities within existing accounts.
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What you’ll do
- Lead physical infrastructure design from concept through technical design (RIBA stages 2–4): design reports, drawings, specifications, budgets and equipment schedules and be involved in the technical oversight and handover (RIBA stages 4-5) during construction.
- Define technology spaces and their resilient configurations: meet-me rooms, main and building communications rooms, carrier service entrances, including location, sizing, fit-out and power and equipment loads.
- Design campus, inter-building and in-building backbone fibre architectures, and horizontal cabling distribution across data halls and support space.
- Set containment sizing, routing and pathway strategy, and coordinate spatial, power and cooling constraints with the MEP design team.
- Specify cabinets, frames and cable management, grounding and bonding, and the labelling and administration regime for the installed plant.
- Produce and mark up layout drawings for production by CAD/BIM technicians, and review architects’ and engineers’ drawings for alignment with the technology design.
- Build budgets and bills of quantities covering supply, installation and ongoing support, and liaise with the cost consultant on technology cost plans.
- Prepare specification packages for competitive tender, support contractor pre-qualification, respond to tender queries, evaluate technical and commercial returns and recommend selection.
- Run construction-stage duties: technical submittals, RFIs, change control, value-engineering reviews, site inspections and progress monitoring.
- Witness testing of the installed cabling plant, and support commissioning, snagging and reporting as projects reach handover.
- Present at client design workshops, design-team meetings and formal tender interviews.
- Track and report man-hours against the scope of works, keep Blacktip’s delivery aligned to the agreed scope, and peer-review the team’s output.
- Travel regularly to campuses and sites across the UK and Europe (occasionally wider EMEA & US) for surveys, inspections and meetings.
What you’ll bring
Essential
- A deep grounding in datacentre physical infrastructure design: structured cabling and fibre systems, technology spaces, containment and pathways, at campus scale.
- Hyperscale experience. You have designed and delivered physical infrastructure on hyperscale datacentre programmes, working to a major cloud operator’s own design standards.
- Fluency in the standards that govern the work: TIA-942 and TIA-606, EN 50173-5 and EN 50174, ISO/IEC 11801-5 and the judgement to apply an operator’s own standards where they diverge.
- A working understanding of the power, cooling and containment systems your designs depend on, and confident reading of architectural plans, layouts and elevations, including cable, containment and connection schematics.
- A good grasp of how projects run within the RIBA (or local equivalent) framework, and of the design and construction process through to completion and handover.
- Experience producing specifications, budgets and tender documentation, and evaluating tender returns.
- Construction-stage and site experience: technical submittals, RFIs, inspections, witness testing and site surveys.
- Strong communication skills at every level, the confidence to lead client engagements, and the organisation to run several projects at once to tight deadlines.
- Rigorous attention to detail in your own work and when peer-reviewing others’.
- High IT literacy: Bluebeam, Visio, Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Adobe Acrobat Pro.
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Desirable
- BICSI RCDD, CNet CDCDP/CDCS or an equivalent datacentre infrastructure design certification.
- Outside-plant and duct network design, dark-fibre and carrier interconnect knowledge.
- Enough familiarity with the active network layer to coordinate confidently with network design teams.
- AutoCAD and Revit/BIM environment experience.
- Experience of high-volume, high-pace programme environments and online project and resource management tools.
If you don’t tick every box but you have designed datacentre physical infrastructure at serious scale, we’d still like to hear from you.
Software
- Visio
- Bluebeam
- Word
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Adobe Acrobat Pro
- AutoCAD and Revit (desirable)
You must have the right to work in the UK; we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role. Blacktip is an equal-opportunities employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of background.
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