IT Technical Lead - MSP in Hampshire, Portsmouth

Location: Southampton

Established and trusted IT Managed Services company have an urgent requirement for a Technical Lead to join their team based at their beautifully refurbished offices located perfectly in the Southampton area. My client is an ISO accredited growing managed IT support company based in Southampton, Hampshire providing IT support, Cyber Security, VoIP and Cloud services to businesses across the South Coast and beyond.

The Role: My client is urgently seeking to appoint an experienced Technical Lead, this is a senior and important hire for the business and the successful candidate will take a principal role in leading their technology team through an exciting period of growth and transformation. This is a hands-on leadership role, responsible for overseeing all aspects of infrastructure, cybersecurity, networking, and business systems, while managing a talented in-house IT team. You will also play a key role in the organisation's roadmap to AI implementation, ensuring that IT strategy and operations are aligned with wider business objectives. The position is of a full-time and permanent nature and will be predominantly office-based with some flexible hybrid working available.

As the business's Technical Expert, you will be responsible for the strategic direction, management, and delivery of IT services across the business. You will ensure the security, resilience, and efficiency of systems while developing the team and driving continuous improvement across technology functions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership & Escalation: Act as the highest technical escalation point for the service desk and field engineers. Troubleshoot complex issues across networking, cloud, security, and endpoint systems. Provide guidance on best practices, architecture decisions, and solution design. Mentor engineers and support their technical development.
• Project Delivery & Technical Implementation: Lead technical projects: migrations, deployments, upgrades, cloud transitions. Scope and design solutions in collaboration with account managers. Ensure projects are delivered on time, within budget, and to technical standards.
• Security & Compliance: Oversee implementation of security tools (EDR, MFA, XDR, backup, etc.). Maintain compliance with frameworks (Cyber Essentials, ISO, NIST). Conduct risk assessments and recommend improvements.
• Client Engagement: Act as a trusted technical advisor for key clients. Attend technical review meetings and present environment health insights. Translate technical concepts into business-focused recommendations.
• Process & Workflow Improvement: Develop and refine SOPs, runbooks, and escalation workflows. Improve documentation quality and ensure knowledge is shared. Identify opportunities for automation and efficiency gains.

Skills and Experience:

We are looking for a proven IT leader ideally from within the MSP arena who can combine technical credibility with strong people management and strategic thinking.

Technical Skills:

• Strong understanding of Microsoft 365, Azure AD/Entra, Intune, and Windows and network environments.
• Networking fundamentals (VLANs, firewalls, routing, VPNs).
• Backup/BCDR technologies.
• Endpoint security and XDR/EDR platforms.
• Virtualization (Hyper-V, VMware).
• Scripting/automation (PowerShell preferred).

Leadership & Soft Skills:

• Excellent communication and client-facing presence.
• Ability to mentor and upskill junior engineers.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking.
• Calm under pressure, especially during incidents.
• Ability to balance technical depth with business context.

Essential Experience:

• Previous experience in a CTO, Technical Lead, Head of IT, IT Manager, or Senior IT Leadership role.
• Strong background in infrastructure, networking, and cyber security (Fortinet).
• Experience in managing and leading system integrations or migrations.
• Knowledge of Cyber Essentials + 27001/9001 and wider security best practices.
• Strong stakeholder management and leadership skills, with the ability to operate effectively at all levels of the business.

My client offers a competitive salary and benefits alongside a superb working environment within a friendly, professional and supportive team and there are excellent opportunities for further development and progression to Technical Director / CTO.