Head of IT (DV Clearance Required)

Head of IT

DV Clearance Required 

Cheltenham

Excellent Employer & Benefits Package

My client, a high-end security research and bespoke solutions organisation are seeking an engaged and hands-on Head of IT to provide the company with the networks, security and support required to deliver our cutting-edge research and solutions. You will be a key part of our business, enabling the smooth running of our IT and infrastructure services as we continue to grow and evolve. For this role your responsibilities would include:

• Devising an IT strategy to meet the ongoing business requirements and objectives. This includes leading a team to deliver the strategy.
• Advising the senior leadership team on infrastructure and IT strategy topics.
• Creating and maintaining multiple on-premises air-gapped and Internet-connected networks to support our technical research.
• Pro-actively identifying and managing IT security risks, and effectively communicating any areas of concern to the Operations Director, including offering recommendations for resolutions.
• Overseeing the day-to-day tasking of the IT department to identify and remove any technical blockers, and adjust priorities according to business needs.
• Leading and developing people, skills, and competencies in the IT department.
• Owning and implementing IT projects e.g. bringing cloud resources on-premises; delivering to agreed time, cost and quality.
• Designing and implementing processes and procedures to ensure that our systems remain available and secure.
• Leading our IT engagement with various accreditation bodies to support their ongoing endorsement of our systems.
• Collaborating with the other teams in the business to ensure our IT infrastructure remains fit-for-purpose.
• Managing IT and infrastructure budgets, including hardware refresh cycles, to maximise value-for-money while meeting the current and future needs of the business.
• Building relations with vendors, and sourcing IT equipment and software to achieve best value-for-money.

About You
While we are always open to new skills and backgrounds, we expect our successful candidate to have previous networking and infrastructure experience as well as managerial experience. Please note, this role requires a current DV security clearance and background checks. An ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate several the following:
• Experience in a similar infrastructure role with a good knowledge of Windows and Linux, including:
o Provisioning and managing physical servers, including patching, back-ups, and resource monitoring.
o Managing and securing VPNs.
o Implementation of local and network-based security controls, security logging and monitoring.
o Experience with MDM, such as Intune.
o Virtualisation software.
o LDAP / Access Control Groups.
o Infrastructure-as-Code, and automation / orchestration, such as provisioning and configuring VMs and managing drift.
o Common infrastructure tools and languages eg. Docker, Python
• Managing air-gapped networks.
• Experience in cloud-based technologies e.g. O365 and AWS.
• Experience providing VMs for teams to partially self-manage, in a secure and maintainable way (such as a development environment).
• Excellent understanding of networking and infrastructure design principles to create and manage networks.
• Experience of secure configuration, vulnerability scanning, and vulnerability management.
• An ability to manage multiple streams of responsibility, prioritising tasks for your team (and re-prioritising when urgent requests arise) according to varying deadlines.
• A pro-active attitude with an excellent track record of managing and/or mentoring IT or infrastructure staff and a desire to pitch in with whatever needs doing.
• Excellent verbal and written skills, with experience authoring, updating and reviewing technical documentation, policies and/or procedures.
• Maintain and develop organisational culture, values and reputation with all staff, customers, suppliers, and partners.