Infrastructure Manager

Infrastructure Manager

Didsbury

£58,115 rising to £61,173 (At 2 years, subject to satisfactory performance)

Great Places Infrastructure Manager will lead the Infrastructure team within IT Operations. With responsibility for direct reports, this is a key leadership role responsible for supporting the delivery, maintenance and continual improvement of a modern, secure and resilient infrastructure platform that enables colleagues to work effectively across the organisation. Great Places has a cloud-first approach and has already completed significant migration to Azure, Office 365 and SharePoint Online.

Colleagues are equipped to work effectively across different locations, and the organisation continues to adopt proven modern technologies that improve service, resilience, security and colleague experience.

Our Infrastructure Manager works closely with the Head of IT Operations and wider operational team, including Service Desk, Cyber Security, alongside other internal and external stakeholders. Our Infrastructure Manager will help ensure that Great Places’ infrastructure services are well managed, well documented, cost effective, secure, monitored and continually improved. The role combines people leadership, technical oversight, project delivery, service improvement, operational support and governance.

What you’ll be doing

Lead, manage, mentor and develop the Infrastructure team, setting clear priorities, building capability and creating a supportive environment where colleagues can take ownership and grow their technical skills.

Work closely with the Head of IT Operations, Service Delivery Manager, Cyber Security Lead and wider Technology Services managers to provide joined-up operational leadership and consistent service outcomes.

Own the day-to-day health, resilience, security and cost effectiveness of Great Places’ infrastructure services, ensuring platforms are well maintained, monitored and fit for purpose.

Oversee core infrastructure operations including monitoring, alert response, backups, patching, maintenance, capacity, availability and continual service improvement.

Lead infrastructure input into projects and new system delivery, working with suppliers, project teams and internal stakeholders to implement standardised, supportable solutions with minimal business disruption.

Provide strong change management leadership, ensuring infrastructure changes are well planned, documented, risk assessed, communicated and delivered in line with service management expectations.

Act as a senior technical escalation point for infrastructure incidents, guiding the team through investigation and resolution while ensuring the Service Delivery Manager has timely information for business communications.

Work with Cyber Security to support secure configuration, vulnerability remediation, security monitoring, audit activity and reduction of operational risk.

Manage and improve cloud-first services across Azure, Microsoft 365, Intune and related platforms, balancing resilience, performance, usability, security and cost.

Support network services across Great Places sites and schemes, including Fortinet and Cisco Meraki technologies, ensuring connectivity is reliable, secure and well supported.

Ensure new and existing infrastructure services are clearly documented, governed and delivered in a standardised way to support maintenance, knowledge sharing, audit readiness and effective handover.

Support supplier management, cost control, contract awareness, Fin Ops thinking, audit activity and delivery of the IT Strategy through practical, well governed infrastructure improvements.

What you will need

Proven experience leading an infrastructure function or team within a complex operational environment.

Strong people management skills, with the ability to coach, mentor, develop and hold technical colleagues accountable while maintaining a positive team culture.

Good understanding of ITIL methodology and service management principles, including incident, problem, change, request and continual improvement practices.

Experience managing Microsoft cloud services, particularly Azure, Microsoft 365, Intune, identity, endpoint management…