Head of Infrastructure - #2165519

Lead a 37-person infrastructure function through a major period of modernisation, including data centre consolidation, telephony transformation and the development of the university's cloud capabilities. You will provide confident, autonomous leadership across platforms, networks and infrastructure, shaping the strategy while improving team empowerment and operational delivery.

Client Details

Our client is a leading university with an internationally recognised reputation for teaching and research. Its technology function supports a large and complex community, delivering the critical infrastructure needed to enable education, research and the wider operation of the university.

The organisation is entering an important period of infrastructure transformation, with significant investment planned across cloud, data centres, platforms and telecommunications.

Description

As Head of Infrastructure, you will lead the strategy, performance and development of the university's infrastructure services. Reporting into the senior technology leadership team, you will have three direct reports and overall responsibility for approximately 37 people across the infrastructure function.

The environment includes three data centres, which will be consolidated into two newly built facilities, alongside a significant on-premise estate. The university is also developing its cloud capabilities and assessing where services should remain on-premise and where cloud adoption can deliver the greatest value.

Key responsibilities will include:

• Leading, developing and empowering the infrastructure management team.
• Defining the infrastructure strategy, standards and technical roadmap.
• Consolidating three existing data centres into two newly built facilities.
• Leading the assessment and modernisation of the on-premise estate.
• Developing a pragmatic "cloud where appropriate" approach.
• Overseeing the transformation of the university's telephony services.
• Strengthening platform capabilities across server, storage, virtualisation, backup and cloud technologies.
• Maintaining the availability, capacity, resilience and security of critical infrastructure services.
• Improving disaster recovery and service-continuity arrangements.
• Managing infrastructure budgets, strategic suppliers, contracts and service-level agreements.
• Supporting technical decision-making across projects and wider transformation initiatives.
• Improving accountability and empowerment across the infrastructure teams.
• Acting as a senior escalation point for complex operational and people-related matters.
• The current technology environment includes Dell infrastructure, VMware and Linux. The networking function is well established and technically strong, while platform and cloud capabilities represent key areas for further development.
• Ensure infrastructure resources support projects, business applications and service operations.
• Build effective relationships with senior stakeholders, strategic partners and technology suppliers.
• Provide regular financial, operational and performance reporting to senior leadership.
• Act as a senior escalation point for complex or high-profile service issues.
• Deputise at senior management level when required.

Profile

You will be a confident and pragmatic infrastructure leader who can operate independently, make informed decisions and create clarity for technical teams. You will not need to be the deepest technical specialist across every area, but you must possess the breadth, awareness and credibility to lead a diverse enterprise infrastructure function.

You should demonstrate:

• Senior leadership experience within a complex infrastructure environment.
• A broad understanding of platforms, networks, cloud, data centres, storage, backup and virtualisation.
• Strong platform infrastructure experience, ideally spanning servers, storage and virtualisation.
• Experience contributing to or leading cloud adoption and infrastructure modernisation.
• The confidence to make decisions without requiring close supervision.
• Experience leading managers and multidisciplinary technical teams.
• The ability to empower teams while maintaining clear accountability.
• Strong people leadership, including experience handling challenging performance or team situations.
• Experience developing infrastructure strategies, roadmaps and technical standards.
• A pragmatic approach to balancing on-premise and cloud technologies.
• Strong stakeholder, supplier and commercial-management capabilities.
• A collaborative, approachable and relatively easygoing leadership style.
• The ability to engage with technical detail while maintaining a strategic perspective.

Experience within higher education is not required. Exposure to Linux environments would be beneficial, while experience with Nutanix, Dell, VMware, data centre consolidation or telephony transformation would be particularly advantageous.

Job Offer

• Competitive salary ranging from £60,000 to £76,000, dependent on the level of experience.
• A senior leadership role with genuine influence over infrastructure strategy.
• The opportunity to lead a substantial infrastructure-modernisation programme.
• Significant involvement in cloud adoption, platform development and data centre transformation.
• Freedom to shape the role and become as involved in strategy as your experience and interests allow.
• Leadership responsibility for approximately 37 infrastructure professionals.
• A collaborative environment that welcomes ideas and informed challenge.
• Hybrid working, with a minimum of two days on site and an expectation of three days where required.
• A 35-hour working week.
• Generous university employment benefits and ongoing professional development.