Infrastructure & Automation Manager

Senior IT Recruiter at the PayPoint | We’re hiring in Tech at the PayPoint Group!

What will you be doing?

The Infrastructure and Automation Manager is a critical role responsible for driving the evolution of the organisation’s infrastructure during a pivotal period of modernisation and cloud transformation. This role manages a team of infrastructure engineers while championing automation as a core operational principle — ensuring scalability, resilience, and efficiency across all IT services.

Working closely with the Architecture team, this role will play a key part in translating the organisation’s reference architectures into real, production‑ready solutions. With a major migration underway from on‑premises environments to cloud platforms, this is an exciting opportunity to shape the future‑state infrastructure landscape and accelerate automation across the estate.

While primarily a managerial and strategic position, the role requires hands‑on involvement in complex or high‑impact technical initiatives.

The role is Hybrid with a requirement to be onsite 2-3 times a week in Welwyn Garden City or Liverpool offices. Occasional travel will also be required between both sites.

Key responsibilities

• Oversee the delivery, performance, and lifecycle of the organisation’s infrastructure across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments.
• Lead the execution of the ongoing cloud migration programme, ensuring seamless transition from legacy infrastructure to modern cloud‑native platforms.
• Partner with the Architecture team to implement and ope rationalise approved reference architectures, ensuring consistency, scalability, and adherence to standards.
• Own and drive the automation roadmap, embedding automation across provisioning, configuration, monitoring, and operational workflows.
• Set standards for automation tooling and practices (e.g., IaC, CI/CD, scripting frameworks) and ensure adoption across the infrastructure team.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate manual processes, increase reliability, and reduce operational overhead.
• Lead, coach, and develop a high‑performing infrastructure and automation team.
• Set clear objectives, build capability, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
• Prioritise work through effective planning, delegation, and alignment with broader technology strategy.

Project & Stakeholder Management

• Own end‑to‑end delivery of infrastructure and automation initiatives, ensuring they meet timelines, quality standards, and business needs.
• Act as a key point of contact for stakeholders across IT and the wider business, providing clear updates and expert guidance.
• Manage vendor relationships, ensuring high‑quality service delivery and commercial value.
• Own and manage the infrastructure and automation budget, including forecasting, procurement, and cost optimisation.
• Develop, maintain, and enforce IT policies, standards, and best practices, including disaster recovery, security, and compliance.
• Ensure infrastructure services meet operational, security, and regulatory requirements.

What we would like from you

• Proven experience (5+ years) in IT infrastructure management and automation, with a strong background in system administration and cloud technologies.
• Demonstrated leadership experience with the ability to manage and motivate a technical team.
• Proficiency in automation and scripting languages (e.g., Python, Power Shell, Bash) and automation tools (e.g., Ansible, Terraform, Jenkins).
• Solid understanding of IT security principles, data protection regulations, and disaster recovery strategies.
• Excellent project management skills, with experience in Agile methodologies being highly desirable.
• Strong analytical, problem‑solving, and decision‑making capabilities.
• Exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to interact effectively with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.

Core Technologies (Essential):

• VMware ESXi and broader virtualisation platforms (e.g., vSphere, Hyper‑V, or similar)
• Windows Server administration (AD, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy)
• Infrastructure automation using IaC and modern tooling (Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD pipelines)
• Scripting experience (Power…