Senior Systems Engineer in Reading

We're looking for a Senior Systems Engineer to lead the design and evolution of secure, resilient IT infrastructure across on-premise and cloud environments. This is a hands-on role for a technical leader who enjoys solving complex problems, driving improvement, and supporting others to do their best work. You'll bring strong expertise in automation, cloud platforms, and modern DevOps practices, acting as a technical authority across the organisation. You'll collaborate closely with teams, mentor engineers, and ensure the delivery of reliable, high-quality services that support critical clinical systems. You'll also play a key role in innovation, compliance with NHS and national standards, and strengthening disaster recovery and business continuity. The role includes out-of-hours support on a rota basis, ensuring the availability of core systems and infrastructure for frontline clinical services outside normal business hours.

Main duties of the job:

• Proactively maintain, support, and improve IT infrastructure to ensure resilience, security, and reliability.
• Act as a senior escalation point for infrastructure incidents and manage complex technical issues to resolution.
• Ensure incidents, problems, and changes are handled in line with ITIL processes, SLAs, and NHS policies, including root cause analysis.
• Design, implement, and document infrastructure solutions, producing high- and low-level designs and technical documentation.
• Drive disaster recovery and business continuity planning, testing, and continuous improvement.
• Research, test, and introduce new infrastructure technologies, maintaining test environments where required.
• Collaborate with internal teams and third-party suppliers to deliver secure, integrated infrastructure services.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to junior members of the team and foster a culture of continual improvement.
• Support and contribute to projects, upgrades, and service transformations with minimal disruption to clinical services.
• Ensure compliance with NHS, information governance, and security standards (including ISO27001).
• Provide out-of-hours support on a rota basis to maintain availability of core systems for frontline clinical services.
• Deputise for the IT Infrastructure Manager when required.

About us:

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust is a specialist mental health and community health services trust. Rated 'outstanding' by the CQC, we're committed to providing the best possible care to people across Berkshire. As an employer, we're committed to offering an inclusive and compassionate environment where our people share in a sense of belonging and are supported to flourish.

Our values at Berkshire Healthcare are:

• Caring for and about you is our top priority.
• Committed to providing good quality, safe services.
• Working Together with you to develop innovative solutions.

Your wellbeing is important to us. Some of the benefits of working for us include:

• Flexible working options to support work-life balance.
• 27 days' annual leave rising with service + opportunity to buy and sell.
• Excellent learning and career development opportunities.
• 'Cycle to Work' and car leasing scheme including electric vehicles.
• Access to a range of wellbeing tools and services.
• Discounts at hundreds of popular retailers and restaurants.
• Staff networks for race, diversity, disabilities, the environment and armed forces community to support equality.
• Generous maternity, paternity, adoption and special leave.
• Free parking across Trust site.

Job responsibilities:

The must haves for this role:

• Educated to degree level or significant equivalent experience.
• Certification in Microsoft Azure, Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate or significant relevant experience.
• Extensive experience as a Senior Systems Engineer and System Administrator and of providing diverse services to multiple customers within a large multi-faced, multi-site organisation.
• Advanced knowledge of the following: Windows Server 2016 & above, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell and Hyper-V.
• Full driving licence and the use of car on a daily basis as well as willingness to work outside of normal office hours.

We strongly encourage you to review how you meet the criteria in the person specification and write about this point-by-point in your supporting statement for the best chance of being shortlisted. We're committed to equal opportunities and welcome applications from all sections of the community. Our commitment to inclusion is reflected in our accreditations: Race Equality Matters Silver Trailblazer, Neurodiversity in Business Corporate Member, Disability Confident Leader, Carer Confident Level 2, and the Armed Forces Covenant Gold Award. Reasonable adjustments will be provided to candidates as needed. We welcome a conversation about flexibility and any other questions you may have.

Please don't hesitate to call: Shiva Pallapothu, IT Infrastructure Manager on 01189046290 or email: Shiva.Pallapothu@berkshire.nhs.uk who'll be delighted to help.