Head of IT

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This range is provided by Alpine Fire Engineers Ltd. Your actual pay will be based on your skills and experience — talk with your recruiter to learn more.

Direct message the job poster from Alpine Fire Engineers Ltd

Alpine Group (including Alpine Fire Engineers and DAS Fire) is a fast growing, award winning, leader in fire detection and suppression systems — designing, delivering and maintaining complex solutions across logistics & distribution, aerospace, automotive, pharmaceuticals, high hazard and other specialist environments.

We’re proud to be recognised among The Sunday Times Best Places to Work (2025), reflecting our focus on wellbeing, values and a high performance, people first culture.

Location:

Bury (Greater Manchester) as the primary base, with occasional travel to other UK sites.

The Opportunity:

As we scale, we are strengthening our in‑house IT capability. This role will take responsibility for defining and delivering our IT roadmap — ensuring that our systems, data, and services keep pace with business growth and support a great colleague and client experience.

You’ll manage the day‑to‑day IT operations (largely delivered by partners), oversee vendors, work with internal stakeholders to prioritise projects, and guide continuous improvement across infrastructure, applications, and security.

This is a hands‑on, delivery‑focused role with direct visibility to the leadership team, ideal for someone who enjoys balancing strategy with execution.

Core Responsibilities

• Set & deliver the technology strategy
• Own the multi‑year IT roadmap aligned to business goals (growth, M&A, European expansion), covering applications (ERP), data & analytics, infrastructure & cloud, end user experience, and service excellence.
• Translate business goals (growth, M&A, European expansion) into clear IT initiatives and delivery plans.
• Track progress and communicate updates, risks, and investment needs to leadership.

IT Operations & Service

• Ensure IT services run smoothly and meet agreed SLAs, working closely with our IT & Net Suite Support Manager.
• Coordinate MSPs and vendors to maintain uptime, connectivity, device lifecycle management, and user support.
• Negotiate IT supplier contracts, SLAs and commercial terms that balance value, performance and risk.
• Lead our security posture and drive ‘secure by design’ across identity, devices, data and SaaS applications.
• Run risk management, change control, disaster recovery, incident response and supplier assurance.

Applications & data

• Partner with Finance and Operations to enhance Net Suite and adjacent SaaS platforms.
• Support automation, integration, and reporting initiatives that improve efficiency and decision‑making.
• Mature our Microsoft 365 stack and uplift device management, collaboration, and information protection.
• Oversee connectivity, resilience, and the path to cloud first (where it adds value).

Budgeting & value management

• Build and manage the IT budget (opex/capex), forecast, and track ROI on change initiatives.
• Continuously optimise cost‑to‑serve, licensing and operational efficiency.

Change, training & communications

• Ensure a great colleague experience with IT (clear SLAs, self‑service, knowledge, training).
• Lead change communications and occasional training for new tools and initiatives across the business.
• Contribute to knowledge sharing and training to improve digital confidence across the business.

Leadership

• Line manage and grow the internal IT team — coach, mentor, set goals and foster a high trust, high standards culture.

Out of hours

• Rare, but from time‑to‑time critical activities may require work outside standard hours (e.g., incidents, projects). We plan to avoid it, and we recognise it when it occurs.

What You’ll Bring:

• Track record leading IT in a multi‑site, service/engineering or industrial setting at Head of IT / IT Manager / CTO level.
• Strong hands on knowledge and experience across:
  Microsoft 365/Entra/Intune/Defender; enterprise networking; identity & access; endpoint security; device lifecycle; backup/DR.
• Experience with ERP/Net Suite or similar…