Infrastructure Engineer
Please Note: The application deadline for this post has now passed.
Post Introduction
The National Church Institutions comprises a wide variety of teams, professions and functions that support the mission and ministries of the Church of England in its vision to be a church, centred on Jesus Christ, for the whole nation - a church that is simpler, humbler, bolder.
We Include. You Belong.
Our Belonging and Inclusion Strategy aims for everyone in the National Church Institutions (NCIs) to feel that they belong, and are valued for who they are and what they contribute. Together, our people contribute in different ways towards our common purpose, whichever NCI they work in and whatever their background.
Living out our values in all that we do, we:
- Strive for Excellence
- Show Compassion
- Respect others
- Collaborate
- Act with Integrity
We believe our commitment to belonging and inclusion fuels our progress and drives us forward. The NCIs are a safe, inclusive workplace for people of all backgrounds and walks of life. We welcome applications from people of all faiths and of no faith. We want to encourage applications from a diverse group of people who share our values. Even if you have never thought about working for us before, if you have the skills and experience we’re looking for then we would like to hear from you.
About the Department
The IT Department now executes a mixture of Azure Cloud and 3rd party outsourced IT services, in an entirely new and modern IT infrastructure that utilises the latest technologies. The IT function serves 900 staff in the National Church Institution co-located bodies and aims to adopt common solutions across the NCIs where practical. IT provides a broad range of customer focused IT services such as technical architecture and support, networks, change management, business analysis, project management, training, Procurement, systems administration and applications hosting.
What you'll be doing
The purpose of this role is to support Microsoft O365, Hybrid Cloud with Azure, including Linux Web Hosting and solutions for applications, databases, desktops, cloud services and a largely Microsoft based platform within agreed service levels and quality standards with minimal disruption to users, work with other IT and business colleagues and 3rd parties on IT projects, change requests and other initiatives and provide informed technical advice to the National Church Institutions staff and all IT users.
Main duties and responsibilities:
- Administration of O365, including SharePoint.
- Administration of O365 suite of products including Security, Defender, Teams and Exchange
- Azure Hybrid Cloud administration and support, taking responsibility for the more advanced support and solutions deployment.
- Using Intune to manage and update the organisations PC’s, laptops and mobile devices.
- Support the companies network infrastructure which includes Aruba, Cisco, and Juniper technologies.
- Manage the AvePoint and Azure backup system for operation and restore readiness.
- Operate as technical advisor to 1st line service desk analysts and support technical projects, maintenance and other change and operational activities in your areas of expertise.
- Organise own workload and ensure agreed quality standards, service levels and project and change timescales are met and with minimal disruption to users.
- Contribute technical advice and support to impact assessments and solutions for service, change and new requirement requests and ensure compliance with change control practices.
- Write technical HLDs/LLDs, work instructions and user documentation and present technical options and guidance clearly and concisely in technical and non-technical documents tailored to audience.
- Build and maintain successful relationships with key contacts in departments and 3rd parties to ensure their requirements are taken on board and incidents are resolved effectively, cohesively and in a timely fashion.
- Conduct daily checks and constantly monitor systems, analyse trends, and take remedial action as appropriate and in conjunction with Heads of Technical Infrastructure
- Ensure all investigations and solutions consider security such as malware and viruses and that security incidents are resolved immediately to constantly mitigate risks to the live system.
- Undertake technical projects as required by the IT management team.
About You
The Church of England is for everyone and we want to reflect the diversity of the community the Church serves across the whole country. Therefore, while of course we welcome all applications from interested and suitably experienced people, we would particularly welcome applicants from UK Minoritised Ethnicities (UKME)/Global Majority Heritage (GMH) and other under-represented groups.
Essential
Knowledge/Experience
Education:
- ITIL Foundation
- Microsoft Certified Specialist Engineer
- SharePoint administration
- Azure administration
- O365 administration
- Networking principals
Skills/Aptitudes:
- Ability to work unsupervised and to work as part of a team.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Significant troubleshooting expertise and structured problem-solving skills
- Able to use a range of reporting tools Business Objects, Power BI, MS SQL, to provide management information reports.
- Able to support new and emerging line of business applications and IT solutions.
Knowledge/Experience:
- Strong and demonstrable experience in supporting Microsoft O365 to an advanced level, Microsoft technologies, specifically including Windows server, SQL databases, applications and packaging, desktops, Teams telephony, web hosting.
- In-depth knowledge and experience of working on or with a service desk day to day, providing advanced technical support.
- High level of technical knowledge and troubleshooting, to address a broad range of IT incidents and assist IT colleagues with troubleshooting technical issues and NCIs staff with technical queries.
- Experience in problem management, solving issues effectively, identifying ways to mitigate future repeated incidents and working with other IT colleagues to provide resolutions.
- Experience in prioritising own workload and working under pressure and to deadlines.
- Significant experience in working successfully internally and externally with IT users, senior managers and 3rd party IT suppliers and service providers.
- Liaising with and between technical and non-technical staff and 3rd parties
- Experience in mitigating security incidents caused by malware, viruses and non-compliance with network security policies.
- Experience managing switches routers and firewalls.
- Good knowledge of networking principals including TCPIP, DNS, and DHCP and firewall rules.
- Knowledge of backup systems including restores and DR processes. (AvePoint)
- Knowledge of managing VPN systems (Zscaler)
- Cyber security knowledge including Cyber Essentials certification.
- Scripting knowledge using PowerShell
- Knowledge SQL management including backups and data extracts
- Azure AD Entra administration, including knowledge of ACL’s, IIS and AD connect.
- Good knowledge of O365 hybrid exchange administration
Personal Attributes:
- Committed to delivering a high level of customer service and getting things right first time.
- A sense of urgency and passion to complete work and attention to detail, quality and confidentiality
- Committed to continuing professional development and updating key knowledge.
Desirable
Education:
- Microsoft Server administration
- Microsoft SharePoint administration
- Cisco CCNA or equivalent
Skills/Aptitudes:
- Microsoft Technologies
- Networking
- Enabling and Managing Office 365 Services
- Configuring and Operating within the Microsoft Azure Stack
- PRTG monitoring and alerting
- AvePoint
- Zscaler
- Azure Entra skills
- Azure application deployment
- Managing printers and print servers using Papercut
What we offer
Our benefits include:
- A salary of £55,000 per annum plus age-related pension contributions between 8-15% of salary. We will also match any pension contributions you make up to an additional 3% of salary.
- 25 days annual leave (increasing to 30 days within 5 years) plus three additional days
- Flexible working hours and location, with an expectation of just 1-2 days per week in our office in Westminster
- Structured induction programme and access to a range of development opportunities including apprenticeships
- Access to Occupational Health, and an Employee Assistance Programme
- Opportunity to the Civil Service Sports & Social Club, and get involved in a range of staff networks, groups and societies
We try to be as flexible as we can in your work pattern to support you with other commitments, and to give a good work-life balance.
The closing date for applications is Tuesday 30 April 2024.
First stage interviews will be held during week commencing 06 May 2024.
Second stage interviews will be held during week commencing 13 May 2024.
