Head of IT Operations

Salary: £60,000 - 75,000 per yearRequirements:

• At least 5 years experience in senior infrastructure engineering, including 2 or more years in a leadership role
• Experience leading a service desk or IT operations team across multiple sites, supporting on-premises systems and home workers
• Strong hands-on experience with Windows Server, virtualisation, Microsoft 365 and networking, including switching, VLANs, wireless and firewalls
• Proven experience in incident, problem and change management
• Security and compliance experience, such as Cyber Essentials Plus, CIS Benchmarks and penetration-test remediation
• Experience designing and testing backup and disaster recovery
• PowerShell or similar scripting experience
• A track record of delivering projects end to end
• Ability to explain technical risk clearly to non-technical leaders
• AI literacy and an interest in using AI tools to help teams work more effectively
• Comfortable making sound decisions without a perfect rulebook, calm under pressure, focused on root causes, commercially minded about cost and risk, and able to get up to speed quickly
• Desirable: experience with Mitel MiVoice or similar telephony, Dell PowerEdge and enterprise storage, ITIL, Intune or Action1, developing and onboarding AI solutions, or working in an FCA-regulated business

Responsibilities:

• Lead and develop the service desk and infrastructure team through one-to-ones, appraisals and a skills matrix
• Own service-level agreements, KPIs and service quality using Jira Service Management
• Lead technical escalations and major incidents, including post-incident reviews
• Manage change, IT policies and documentation standards
• Oversee Windows Server, Hyper-V, Dell PowerEdge, SQL Server and Linux environments
• Manage networking across two sites, including SonicWall firewalls, switching, VLANs, Wi-Fi and secure remote access
• Oversee Microsoft 365, Exchange Online, Entra ID and Active Directory
• Manage patching, vulnerability management, Wazuh SIEM and Cyber Essentials Plus
• Own backup, disaster recovery and business continuity using Veeam, including regular restore and failover tests
• Oversee Mitel telephony and call recording
• Manage the IT budget, suppliers, licences, contract renewals and hardware refresh programme
• Automate routine work with scripting and introduce useful AI tools
• Coordinate out-of-hours cover, including Saturday support and a monthly Maintenance Sunday

Technologies:

• AI
• Active Directory
• Hardware
• Hyper-V
• Support
• ITIL
• JIRA
• Linux
• Matrix
• Microsoft 365
• PowerShell
• SQL
• Security
• Veeam
• Windows
• Office 365

More:

We are an established, FCA-regulated financial services business in Bolton, and this Head of IT Operations role reports directly to our CEO. The role leads IT operations across two Bolton sites and home workers, combining leadership with hands-on technical work. We offer a salary of £60,000–£75,000, hybrid working for 35 hours a week from Monday to Friday, 28 days holiday plus bank holidays, your birthday off and a half-day for seasonal shopping, a contributory pension, support with industry-relevant qualifications, free on-site parking, a cycle-to-work scheme and casual dress. This is a hands-on leadership role involving people and budget management. The confidential search is run exclusively by Red Dot Search; applications from people of all backgrounds are welcome, and reasonable adjustments are available throughout the process.

last updated 44 week of 2026