[ref. b79307522] Technical Architect

Technical Architect

Salary: £57,660

PLEASE NOTE: to be considered for this position, you must have been based in the UK for the last 5 years. This organisation cannot consider applicants who require sponsorship or are currently on a UK Visa.

Your new employer

This Public Sector entity is currently concluding consultation for a changed structure in the IT Department. These changes are increasing roles, increasing capacity, and increasing the capability of the department to ensure our IT Team have the resources and skills to meet the challenges of modern changes.

The Technical Architect is a new role for the IT Department and will be the bedrock of our third line support capability.

You will be responsible for the availability of IT infrastructure and related components, ensuring any adverse effects on the business are minimised and that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. This involves providing 3rd level support for incidents and for facilitating external delivery partner support where required, adhering to service level agreements Responsible for problem management relating to IT infrastructure and associated components, ensuring the root cause of incidents are identified and resolved.

• To have a good understanding of the ITIL service management framework and processes, and the ability to apply the knowledge whilst supporting IT infrastructure and operations.
• To implement, manage, support, and operate the technical infrastructure, including systems and services of the force to the defined SLA’s, including agreed performance, availability, and security requirements. This involves ensuring mission-critical comms such as 999 and Airwave calls can be processed in line with appropriate operational governance and legal compliance.
• To monitor the external environment and gather intelligence on emerging technology whilst assessing the opportunity to the force. Assist with reports and technology roadmaps to ensure that knowledge is shared with senior stakeholders.
• To conduct investigative work for technical solutions such as systems, networking, and infrastructure components to enable feasibility assessments. This includes supporting with business cases, costs/benefits, impact, and risk analysis for options.
• To manage scoping, requirements definition and prioritisation activities for IT Infrastructure initiatives.
• To contribute to the development, implementation and testing of continuity management plans.
• To manage suppliers to ensure they meet key performance indicators and agreed targets whilst ensuring potential disputes or conflicts are raised and resolved. To be responsible for managing technical infrastructure contracts.
• To review business cases and determine appropriate procurement routes using market research to inform specifications and to ensure detailed pre-qualification questionnaires and tender invitations are prepared.

• To design and undertake regular IT health checks of systems, services, and infrastructure.
• To design and undertake effective patching and vulnerability management of technical systems, services, and infrastructure.
• To design and perform infrastructure testing activities across all stages and iterations of products, systems, and service lifecycles.
• To implement data protection and disaster recovery processes and functionality for all business applications and business data.
• To design, implement and manage storage and backup systems and to provide agreed service levels and creating, improving, and supporting storage management services.
• To undertake complex installations, changes, patches, maintenance, decommissioning and secure disposal of infrastructure and related components.
• To perform advanced database maintenance and configuration activities and monitoring performance.
• To create processes and procedures and use tools and techniques to create and maintain an accurate asset register.
• To take technical responsibility across all stages and iterations of configuration and deployment of infrastructure related software components, including infrastructure as code and virtualisation.
• To be responsible for the availability of IT infrastructure related components, ensuring any adverse effects on the business are minimised and that the best possible levels of service quality and availability are maintained. This involves providing 3rd level support for incidents and for facilitating external delivery partner support where required whilst adhering to service level agreements.
• To be responsible for problem management in relation to IT infrastructure and associated components, ensuring the root cause of incidents are identified and resolved.
• To be responsible for IT infrastructure, to record and report on any events, taking precautionary measures to ensure events don’t cause disruptions to IT services.
• To monitor and detect potential security threats and to escalate them in accordance with relevant procedures and standards.
• To provide an out of hours on-call service as part of a rota for specified IT systems and services. Overtime will be paid accordingly.

• To hold an ITIL3 or later qualification and/or demonstrate experience and knowledge of working with ITIL best practises. If you do not have ITIL, you must be prepared to undergo training to achieve this.
• Experience or knowledge of project management techniques and methodologies such as Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Prince2, Managing Successful Programmes
• Able to take responsibility for all aspects of implementation and technical management of enterprise systems and infrastructure including physical systems, virtual systems, and cloud platforms.
• Experience and awareness of identifying and implementing business continuity, disaster recovery and load balancing processes in accordance with SLA’s
• Experience of supporting IT infrastructure technologies, utilising, and implementing technologies in a secure and practical way providing an expert view for influencing procurement decisions based on best practice and current industry thinking, including working with, implementing key technologies, e.g. Machine Learning, AI solutions, etc
• Experience of investigating, identifying, and taking responsibility for the resolution of complex technical issues, engaging with third party suppliers and specialist resources
• Experience of documenting systems, processes and problems using the appropriate tools and techniques (e.g. UML, DFD, network diagram)
• Experience and understanding of continual service improvement by working with internal and external stakeholders to identify and explore opportunities for service and business improvement, driving analysis, prioritising, and implementing improvements and recognising the potential for automation of processes.

If this job isn't quite right for you, but you are looking for a new position, please contact us for a confidential discussion on your career.

#4654875 - Dale Larkin