Head of ISOC – Manchester - £80k + Bonus
Pearson Carter are currently working with a leading UK Managed Service Provider who are looking to appoint a senior operations leader to head up their Integrated Network & Security Operations Centre (ISOC).
This is a pivotal leadership role for someone who understands how large-scale networks, managed services, and 24/7 operations function in practice — and how security is embedded into resilient service delivery. This role would suit a network-first operational leader with strong security knowledge, rather than a purely cyber-focused profile.
Get in touch if you’re looking for your next leadership opportunity.
Responsibilities:
* Lead and develop 24/7 NOC and SOC teams responsible for service monitoring and incident response
* Own day-to-day operational performance across network and security services
* Develop, implement, and maintain operational processes, runbooks, and escalation procedures
* Ensure network performance, availability, and fault resolution remain industry-leading
* Embed security operations into core service resilience
* Act as senior incident commander during major outages or security events
* Drive operational maturity through tooling, automation, and process optimisation
* Align ISOC strategy with wider platform and product teams
* Oversee service KPIs including uptime, SLAs, MTTD, MTTR, and incident recurrence
* Lead post-incident reviews focused on learning and prevention
* Manage vendors, tooling roadmap, and operational budgets
* Provide meaningful operational reporting to senior leadership and customers
Experience:
* 8–10 years’ experience in network, infrastructure, or service operations
* Minimum 5 years in a senior operational leadership role
* Proven experience leading NOC teams (ideally alongside SOC functions)
* Strong background in routing, switching, firewalls, VPNs, and load balancers (Fortinet, Juniper, Cisco, Aruba, Check Point)
* Enterprise and cloud networking experience, particularly Microsoft Azure
* Strong incident and crisis management capability
* Good working knowledge of SOC tooling (SIEM, EDR, IDS/IPS)
* Experience working within a Managed Service Provider environment
Qualifications (Desirable)
* Degree in Computer Science, Networking, IT or similar
* ITIL v4 Practitioner
* Certifications such as CCNP, CISSP, CISM (or equivalent experience)
Salary & Benefits
* 33 days holiday (inclusive of bank holidays), increasing with service
* Annual pay reviews
* Holiday buy scheme
* All-company bonus scheme
* Strong focus on personal and professional development
Location
Client has an office based near Manchester. This is a hybrid role 3x a week in office
How to Apply
Please apply ASAP with your CV to be considered for this position.
You can also get in touch with me on or 0191 406 6111.
Pearson Carter is the Global Leader in Microsoft Technology, Web, Mobile and Software Development Recruitment with specialist roles across the globe – www.pearsoncarter.com