IT Specialist - Compute & Storage in Newcastle upon Tyne

This job is with Mott MacDonald, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy. Our purpose is to improve society by considering social outcomes in everything we do, relentlessly focusing on excellence and digital innovation, transforming our clients’ businesses, our communities and employee opportunities. A fundamental part of this is respecting each person’s differences and striving to meet their needs.

About the business unit: Mott MacDonald’s support services are the driving force behind our organisation, enabling us to run efficiently and effectively. The team works collaboratively to offer specialist advice, best practice and technology to all areas of our business, specifically designed for our global reach.

Overview Of Role: Are you ready to shape the future of our cloud and infrastructure services? Join us as a Cloud Platform Specialist and become a driving force behind our Microsoft Cloud‑first strategy, while ensuring seamless integration with our third‑party cloud platforms supporting a dynamic organisation. Reporting to the Compute & Storage Manager, you’ll be a key member of the Compute and Storage Team, advising on standards, strategy, and delivering service improvements across our compute and storage platforms. You’ll tackle complex problems, lead transformative projects, and champion operational excellence in a dynamic, collaborative environment. Success in this role requires deep collaboration across infrastructure, service delivery, applications, and security to champion service excellence and drive continuous improvement. You will work closely with cross‑functional teams to align operational and project activities with strategic goals and ensure a seamless experience for our internal customers. This role is a key contributor to our broader business objectives enhancing operational resilience, enabling digital transformation, and optimising service performance. You will be instrumental in shaping a high‑performing, customer‑focused IT function that supports innovation and growth across the organisation. We are committed to building a culture of inclusion, wellbeing, and professional development. As a visible leader, you will foster an environment where people feel empowered, supported, and inspired to deliver their best.

Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the development and refinement of technical standards and best practices for compute and storage platforms, including Azure and Windows Server.
• Contribute to and support project delivery, including cloud migrations, infrastructure upgrades, automation initiatives, and service enhancements, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives and operational requirements.
• Provide operational 4th line support for both cloud and on‑premise infrastructure, ensuring environments are current, secure, and optimised.
• Act as a technical escalation point for complex incidents, problems, and changes, driving resolution and continuous improvement.
• Support identity management and access control (Active Directory, Entra‑ID, RBAC), ensuring robust authentication and authorisation across all platforms.
• Monitor, analyse, and optimise cost, performance and capacity of compute and storage services, proactively identifying and addressing issues.
• Participate in and contribute to strategic projects, such as cloud migrations, automation initiatives, and service enhancements.
• Maintain and update technical documentation, including infrastructure diagrams, solution designs, procedures, and knowledge articles.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams (infrastructure, applications, security, service delivery) to align operational activities with business goals.
• Ensure compliance with security policies and audit requirements, supporting regular reviews and implementing necessary controls.
• Mentor and support operations teams, sharing expertise and fostering a culture of learning and operational excellence.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Stakeholder satisfaction with project outcomes
• Quality of root cause analysis and problem resolution
• Timely delivery of project milestones and technical change initiatives
• Quality and accuracy of technical documentation produced
• Automation adoption rate
• Continual service improvements
• Infrastructure availability and mean time between failures
• Service continuity test success

Candidate Specification:

Essential:

• Proven experience providing advanced technical support and problem resolution for complex compute and storage environments, including Azure, AD, Entra and on‑premises Windows Server.
• Strong technical leadership with the ability to collaborate across teams, drive alignment, and support service excellence in distributed environments.
• Strategic contributor with a track record of influencing operational planning, transformation initiatives, and continuous service improvement.
• Skilled in stakeholder engagement and communication, able to advise, negotiate, and manage expectations across all levels of the organisation.
• Demonstrated capability in risk identification, escalation management, and effective decision‑making under pressure.
• Commitment to operational maturity and service evolution through data‑driven insights, innovation and process optimisation.

Desirable:

• Professional certification in Azure
• Experience operating within complex, matrixed organisations and managing global teams.
• Experience with Microsoft cloud cost optimisation
• Cloud performance engineering (capacity planning, performance tuning)
• Knowledge of containerisation platforms (e.g. Kubernetes)

Employment & Diversity: We are actively recruiting a diverse workforce that is reflective of the communities we serve. We recognise that differences in ability, skills and experience are a strength and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

UK Immigration: Mott MacDonald Ltd. are not currently offering sponsorship to candidates under the Skilled Worker visa route in the UK. This decision is a consequence of the changes made to the Skilled Worker route by the UK Government in April 2024. We continue to welcome applications from candidates who are eligible for alternative immigration routes in the UK, that do not require sponsorship as a Skilled Worker now or in future.

Agile Working: At Mott MacDonald, we believe it makes business sense for you and your manager to choose how you can work most effectively to meet your client, team, and personal commitments. We offer a hybrid working policy that embraces your well‑being, flexibility, and trust.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion: We put equality, diversity and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility: We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

Benefits:

• Health and wellbeing: Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues. Health cash plan to support you with everyday health costs and treatments. Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues. A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing programme, including access for you and your family. Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.
• Financial wellbeing: We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%. Life assurance equal up to 4 × your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 × your salary. Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long‑term illness or injury. Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll savings and wills. As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.
• Lifestyle: A minimum of 33‑35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme. Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service. Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high‑street retailers.
• Enhanced family and carers leave: Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave. Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay. Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.
• Learning and development: Primary annual professional institution subscription. A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training and self‑development options.
• Networks, communities, and social outcomes: Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability and parents/carers communities. Make a difference within our communities through our social outcomes.