Infrastructure & Operations Lead

About this role

Job Title: Infrastructure and Operations Lead

Job Type: Full Time

Employment Type: Permanent

We are seeking an experienced Infrastructure and Operations Lead to take responsibility for the reliability, performance, security, and continuous improvement of enterprise technology infrastructure across the organisation. This is a senior operational leadership role suited to a professional with strong experience across cloud platforms, infrastructure services, networks, systems, service management, and technology operations. The successful candidate will provide technical direction while working closely with engineering, cybersecurity, architecture, application development, service management, and business stakeholders to ensure technology services support critical business requirements. You will lead infrastructure initiatives from planning through implementation and operational handover, while maintaining high standards for resilience, availability, security, and service performance. The role will involve managing operational priorities, supporting major technology programmes, improving automation, reducing technical risk, and developing practical infrastructure strategies for a changing enterprise environment. You will also contribute to supplier management, technology governance, disaster recovery planning, and operational readiness, providing clear technical guidance and informed recommendations to senior stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day operation and continual improvement of enterprise infrastructure spanning cloud, servers, networks, storage, virtualisation, identity, and core technology services.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure strategies, technical standards, operating procedures, and roadmaps aligned with organisational priorities and technology objectives.
• Oversee Microsoft Azure and/or AWS environments, ensuring effective management of compute, storage, networking, identity, monitoring, security, and platform services.
• Lead infrastructure availability, capacity, performance, resilience, and service continuity activities for business-critical systems.
• Manage and prioritise infrastructure incidents, problems, changes, and service requests in accordance with established IT service management practices.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, coordinating internal teams and external suppliers through investigation, recovery, root-cause analysis, and post-incident improvement.
• Drive automation and Infrastructure as Code practices using tools such as Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, Bash, and CI/CD platforms.
• Establish effective monitoring, alerting, logging, and observability across infrastructure environments using platforms such as Azure Monitor, AWS CloudWatch, Splunk, SCOM, or equivalent technologies.
• Develop and regularly test disaster recovery, backup, business continuity, and high-availability arrangements, including defined recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Work with cybersecurity and risk teams to strengthen infrastructure security, vulnerability management, patching, access controls, system hardening, and regulatory compliance.
• Partner with enterprise architects, software engineering teams, and project managers to assess infrastructure requirements and ensure new technology services are operationally ready.
• Manage infrastructure lifecycle activities, including upgrades, migrations, technology refreshes, platform consolidation, end-of-life remediation, and technical debt reduction.
• Oversee relationships with managed service providers and technology suppliers, monitoring service levels, performance, risks, technical delivery, and contractual obligations.
• Produce operational reporting covering availability, incidents, capacity, risks, service performance, infrastructure health, and improvement initiatives for senior technology stakeholders.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent qualification in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Typically 7+ years of professional experience across infrastructure, systems engineering, cloud operations, IT operations, or enterprise technology environments, with substantial experience in a senior or lead capacity.
• Strong understanding of enterprise infrastructure covering Windows Server, Linux, Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, virtualisation, storage, backup, networking, and identity services.
• Demonstrable experience administering and supporting Microsoft Azure and/or AWS, including cloud networking, compute, storage, IAM, security, monitoring, and operational governance.
• Practical experience with Infrastructure as Code, configuration management, scripting, and automation using Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, Bash, or comparable technologies.
• Experience with VMware vSphere or similar virtualisation technologies, enterprise storage platforms, backup solutions, and highly available infrastructure environments.
• Strong knowledge of networking concepts and technologies, including TCP/IP, VPNs, firewalls, routing, switching, load balancing, DNS, and network segmentation.
• Working knowledge of IT service management principles and frameworks, with practical experience across incident, problem, change, configuration, availability, and capacity management.
• Experience with infrastructure monitoring, logging, alerting, and observability platforms such as Azure Monitor, AWS CloudWatch, Splunk, SCOM, Datadog, or equivalent tools.
• Understanding of infrastructure security, vulnerability remediation, patch management, identity and access management, privileged access, endpoint security, and technology risk controls.
• Experience developing and testing disaster recovery and business continuity arrangements, including RTO, RPO, backup, recovery, and service resilience requirements.
• Relevant certifications such as ITIL 4, Microsoft Azure, AWS, VMware, Cisco, or other recognised infrastructure and cloud certifications are desirable.
• Strong leadership, stakeholder management, communication, prioritisation, problem-solving, and technical decision-making skills, with the ability to work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Applicants must have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom. Candidates requiring sponsorship should clearly state their current UK work status and visa requirements.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees. Qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected under applicable federal, state, or local law.

Job Type: Full Time, Permanent

Pay: £64,000.00-£68,000.00 per year

Benefits

• Bereavement leave
• Canteen
• Company pension
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free parking
• Life insurance
• On-site parking
• Sick pay

Work Location: In person

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