Role PurposeOwn, operate and continuously improve the company’s core IT infrastructure, networks and end‑user services, ensuring they remain secure, stable and compliant within a regulated pharmaceutical environment.This is a hands‑on technical leadership role where the manager leads by example in design, build, troubleshooting and optimisation while coaching a small team and coordinating specialist partners.Key Responsibilities 1. Hands‑On Technical Delivery• Administer and support servers, virtualisation platforms, storage, backups, networks, firewalls, Wi-Fi and cloud services (Azure, Microsoft 365).• Perform advanced troubleshooting for incidents and problems, owning major incidents end-to-end.• Implement patches, upgrades, hardening and configuration changes under ITIL and GxP change control.• Maintain monitoring, alerting, observability and capacity planning.• Ensure high availability and performance across on-prem and cloud environments.2. Infrastructure & Team Leadership• Lead and mentor infrastructure and support engineers; set technical direction and priorities.• Foster ownership, documentation, standardisation and right‑first‑time delivery.• Coordinate with the Service Desk for escalation and knowledge transfer.• Champion automation, infrastructure as code and modern engineering practices.3. Service Management, Projects & Continuous Improvement• Own SLAs, KPIs and service outcomes for infrastructure and networks.• Review performance data and drive improvements in resilience, reliability and user experience.• Plan and deliver infrastructure projects (network refreshes, server replacements, cloud migrations, DR tests).• Maintain documentation, runbooks, diagrams and configuration/asset records.• Lead root‑cause analysis and continuous improvement activities.4. Security, Compliance & Pharma Requirements• Implement and maintain security controls: hardening, MFA, logging, SIEM, privileged access and patching.• Ensure infrastructure changes comply with GxP, validation, MHRA, audit and data protection requirements.• Own and regularly test backup and disaster recovery strategies.• Maintain appropriate risk controls and documentation for regulated environments.5. Vendor & Cost Management• Manage day‑to‑day supplier relationships (MSPs, carriers, hardware/software vendors).• Review supplier performance and escalate issues as needed.• Support budgeting, forecasting and cost optimisation for infrastructure OPEX/CAPEX.• Evaluate new technologies and tools to improve reliability, security or cost-efficiency.Required Experience• 5–8+ years in infrastructure/operations roles with current hands‑on capability.• Strong experience with Windows Server, AD/Azure AD, M365, VMware/Hyper‑V, storage, backups and networking.• Experience leading a small team or acting as an informal technical lead.• Experience in regulated, manufacturing, healthcare or pharma environments is highly desirable.• Familiarity with ITIL processes and structured documentation.Skills & Attributes• Deep technical expertise with willingness to remain hands‑on.• Strong troubleshooting mindset; calm under pressure.• Clear communicator able to translate technical issues for non‑technical stakeholders.• Organised, documentation‑driven and improvement‑focused.• Comfortable challenging legacy systems and driving modernisation.