Operations Team Leader - Network & Infrastructure NOC in Liverpool

ARO is seeking an Operations Team Leader to provide day-to-day leadership for our 24/7 Network Operations Centre (NOC), coordinating operational support across our Network and Infrastructure functions.

If you are an experienced technical leader looking for a role where you can shape operational practices, enhance customer value, and lead a skilled team, this could be the opportunity for you. This is a hands-on leadership position, combining shift management with active operational involvement where you will:

• Lead the frontline Operations Team (primarily Tier 1 / Tier 2) during shifts.
• Coordinate escalations to Tier 3 / Technical Leads to maintain service stability and drive ticket quality and pace.
• Oversee live incident flow, escalations, and handovers, ensuring adherence to ITIL-aligned operational processes.
• Collaborate with the Operations Director, Technical Leads, Service Delivery, and Project Delivery teams to ensure BAU operations are repeatable, well-documented, and aligned with customer expectations and governance frameworks (e.g., ISO 27001, NHS environments).
• Support services delivered across ARO’s data centre, cloud, and partner hosting environments.

Please note that this is a Hybrid role with onsite requirement 3 days a week. You must be able to commute to the office and have your own transport.

What you’ll do:

• Provide hands-on support as required during peak demand, major incidents, or complex escalations, including active triage and coordination to restore service quickly.
• Maintain operational oversight of incidents, requests, and maintenance activities during the shift; ensure escalation triggers and comms are applied consistently.
• Coordinate operational support activities impacting data centre environments (e.g., access/remote hands coordination, platform availability, planned works impacts, and restoration activities), working with relevant internal teams and suppliers.
• Run structured shift handovers, ensuring accurate operational status, risks, and priorities are captured and transferred.
• Coordinate shift rotas and resourcing, including short notice cover and adherence to handover discipline, to maintain effective 24/7 operational coverage.
• Act as the first-line management escalation point for operational issues (technical prioritisation, process adherence, ticket quality, customer impact), escalating to senior leadership / technical leadership where required.
• Lead the operational response to Major Incidents when required, ensuring clear stakeholder updates, escalation control, and timely service restoration (including out-of-hours).
• Coordinate planned maintenance execution via CAB (including patching / monitoring / resilience checks) within agreed windows, ensuring approvals, pre-requisites, risk/impact assessment, and stakeholder comms are in place.
• Monitor operational KPIs at shift level (e.g., response, resolution, backlog, SLA risk signals) and raise risks early.
• Support customer service review meetings (e.g., monthly/quarterly), providing operational performance input (KPIs, incident themes, improvement actions) and ensuring agreed actions are owned and tracked through to closure.
• Support pre-sales activities where required, providing operational input to solution design and service transition planning (e.g., support model, monitoring, on-call, documentation, and BAU readiness).
• Coach engineers on ticket quality, communications, and process adherence; contribute to training plans and progression inputs with line management.
• Participate in post-incident reviews and contribute operational evidence / timelines to RCA.
• Support compliance activity by ensuring operational records, audit trails, and evidence are produced through standard tooling and process.

What we are looking for?

Essential:

• Experience leading or supervising a technical operations, service desk, or NOC team in an MSP, ISP, or enterprise IT environment.
• Working knowledge of incident management, escalation, and ITIL-aligned operational practices.
• Ability to coordinate a multi-skill frontline team under time pressure, maintaining structure and clear communications.
• Operational understanding of common infrastructure and network platforms (e.g., VMware, Azure, Fortinet, Cisco, Veeam) sufficient to triage, prioritise, and escalate effectively.
• Experience supporting services within data centre environments (co-location or owned facilities), including operational considerations for availability, change windows, and coordinated restoration.
• Stakeholder Communication: Strong skills for internal coordination and operational customer updates.
• ITIL v4 Foundation certification.

Desirable:

• Experience supporting services across cloud and partner hosting environments.
• Experience in a 24/7 or shift-based environment.
• Exposure to regulated / governance-driven environments (e.g., ISO 27001 and NHS service contexts).
• Familiarity with BAU delivery frameworks and operational governance processes.
• Exposure to escalation coordination with Tier 3 / Technical Leads.
• Ability to contribute to process improvement, operational efficiency, and service quality initiatives.
• Hands-on experience with multi-vendor infrastructure environments, enhancing operational flexibility.

Who are we?

ARO has 25 years’ experience in Collaboration, Connectivity, Cloud and Infrastructure and Cyber Security services both in the UK and Internationally and has a nationwide presence with offices across the UK. As one of the UK’s leading independent IT and communication experts our mission is to deliver a seamless technology experience to all end users. To make that vision a reality, we need bright, tenacious and inspiring talent to help drive our performance, growth and achieve this mission. To make us successful we focus on strong communication, a culture based on fun, trust and collaboration. We have created a modern workplace environment, which is full of engaged, energetic, positive and curious people whose productivity, resilience and wellbeing allow them to thrive. In 2021 we were awarded the People Insight’s Outstanding Workplace Award, which celebrates organisations building positive workplace cultures and acting on employee feedback to spark positive change.

Why Work for ARO?

At ARO we are committed to creating an excellent employee experience. Our employees, culture and additional benefits all make ARO a great place to work. Come join us!

We offer a wide range of benefits and incentives to our employees including:

• Company Pension Scheme and matching contributions
• Company Perks portal
• Private Medical insurance
• Life assurance
• 25 days holiday plus bank holidays plus holiday trading
• Your Birthday off, on us!
• Health Club and Wellbeing Scheme
• ARO Shares after 12 months employment
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Technical Training Academy and E-learning
• Hybrid working

If even 80% of this matches your experience and attributes, we would be delighted to hear from you.