Senior Operations Engineer - EXTEND

JOB BAND: D
CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent, Full-time
DEPARTMENT: Technology Operations – Studio & Broadcast Infrastructure
LOCATION: London, Broadcasting House
PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: £48,700- £58,700

Interviews to take place from 5th January 2026

BBC EXTEND

This role is advertised as part of our BBC Extend programme for disabled people. To apply for this role you should identify as deaf, disabled or neurodivergent and must meet either the definition of disability in the Equality Act (2010) , or the definition of disability in the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) if applying in Northern Ireland. You’re broadly defined as disabled under both acts if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative or adverse effect on your ability to do normal daily activities. This definition includes both apparent and non-apparent conditions and impairments, and medical conditions such as Cancer, HIV or Multiple Sclerosis.

We are committed to making the process of applying for this role as accessible as possible. If you need to discuss adjustments or access requirements for the application process, or have any questions about our Extend programme, please contact [email protected] .

The BBC are fully committed to providing workplace adjustments to help eliminate barriers in the workface that disabled people face. To do this, we have our own dedicated BBC Access and Disability Service that provides assessments and support throughout employment with us. If you are successful in applying for this role and require workplace adjustments, we will work with you to get your adjustments in place.

If you’d like more information on BBC Extend, please visit the BBC Extend webpage. EX2324

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

Technology Operations provides support for, TV and radio studios broadcast infrastructure, digital production systems, other core broadcast facilities and PC and Mac desktops across domestic and international offices. As a Senior Operations Engineer (SOE) you will be familiar with the W1 support arrangements, and proficient in supporting the production teams and workflows. Your role is also to ensure documentation is up to date and co-ordinate new services from the specialist teams and from the project engineers; also, when required, updating documentation with any changes. Periodically we require you to engage and encourage junior engineers or newer members of the team, helping them to understand complex technology systems, with a variety of methods. This may be guided overviews, coaching or utilising our knowledge management database.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

Technology Operations is part of Technology & Product Group. The department actively helps BBC programme makers create and deliver great content across radio, TV and online. Technology Operations is principally responsible for the broadcast support of live and recorded programme output all day, every day across News Group, Radio at various sites in London including Broadcasting House, Millbank and Maida Vale and International Bureaux. As a support department our role is to make life as easy as possible for those using the BBC’s technology, while minimising the amount of Licence Fee we consume in doing so.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT:

Studio Broadcast & Infrastructure Engineers are responsible for delivering a high-quality support service on behalf of the BBC. They ensure that equipment and systems used to create, capture, manipulate and distribute BBC content meet targets for availability, performance and safety. Technicians, Engineers and Senior Engineers support and enable multi-media production and broadcast activities to ensure the BBC provides a quality service to its audience. It is essential that the SOE role holders understand the needs of the business and the pressures faced by production teams. As SOE we expect you to act as a point of contact for production teams and help co-ordinate resources alongside the duty team leaders.

Engineers are characterised by their ability to develop appropriate solutions to incidents, problems and management of safety, using new or existing\legacy technologies, through innovation, creativity and change. As an SOE you support the engineers to take responsibility for maintaining and managing applications of current and developing technology and may undertake engineering design and development of systems and services.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• Proficient knowledge of supporting broadcast systems and technologies within live TV, Radio, or multimedia currently in use in BBC studios and technical areas.
• Able to explain information to technical and non-technical audiences. This includes communications to large, diverse audiences following incidents and acting as the point of contact for operational management.
• In the absence of the Team Lead Operations Engineer the Senior Operations Engineer is accountable for out-of-hours support for the operational team, management of internal and audience services and provide duty of care to engineering colleagues.
• Proficient in utilising the knowledge management database and ensuring updates to that system with relevant changes or known errors are added.
• Leads the response to service disruption and supports proactive measures to prevent recurrence. Displays a keen awareness of broadcast requirements keeping and production colleagues informed of developments if outages are persistent.

DESIRED:

• Ensure the Health and Safety at Work Act, Working Time Directive and other workplace legislation is observed; responsible for ensuring risk assessments and /or method statements are completed, reviewed and appropriate and they meet BBC standards
• Considerable experience of diagnosing and fixing technically complex problems across a variety broadcast systems with particular emphasis on large scale IP based Video & Audio production systems as well as more traditional broadcast infrastructure.
• Diagnostic competency with file based video editing (e.g. Quantel & Apple) and media management systems, Graphics (e.g. VizRT), TV Studio Channel Automation (e.g. Mosart). Working knowledge of camera automation and Robotic systems (e.g. Shotoku, Furio) are preferable
• Good knowledge of networking, AoIP, Dante, MADI and diagnostic tools (e.g., Wireshark). Familiarity with remote access support using VPN, MSTSC, iLO and VMware
• Excellent ability to identify broadcast requirements and to recognise whether these can be met effectively from the resources, timescales skills and funds available within the engineering skills available within that time frame

Disclaimer

This is a written statement of the essential characteristics of the job, with its principal accountabilities, incorporating a note of the skills, knowledge and experience required for a satisfactory level of performance. This is not intended to be a complete, detailed account of all aspects of the duties involved.

Please note: If you were to be offered this role, the BBC will conduct Employment screening checks which include Reference checks; Eligibility to work checks; and if applicable to the role, Safeguarding and Adverse media/Social media checks. Any offer made is conditional on these checks being satisfactory.

For any general queries, please contact: [email protected]