Infrastructure Operations Manager in Newcastle upon Tyne

Contract type: Permanent

Location: London or Newcastle with a minimum of 2 days per week in the office

Salary: London c£75,000 Newcastle c£65,625 per annum plus civil service pension scheme employer contribution of 28.9%

Nationality Requirements

• UK nationals
• Nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• Nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with (or eligible for) status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

Please note, we are not able to sponsor work visas.

Application Deadline

The closing date for applications is 11.59pm 7 December 2025. Interviews will take place on 15/16 December with final interviews on the 5/6 January 2026.

About the National Audit Office

The National Audit Office (NAO) is the UK’s main public sector audit body. Independent of government, we have responsibility for auditing the accounts of various public sector bodies, examining the propriety of government spending, assessing risks to financial control and accountability, and reviewing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of programmes, projects and activities. We report directly to Parliament, through the Committee of Public Accounts of the House of Commons which uses our reports as the basis of its own investigations. We employ around 1,000 staff, most of whom are qualified accountants, trainees or technicians. They work in either of our two service lines, financial audit or value for money (VFM) audit or within the corporate enabling group.

The NAO welcomes applications from everyone. We value diversity in all its forms and the difference it makes to our organisation. By removing barriers and creating an inclusive culture all our people have the opportunity to develop and maximise their full potential. As members of the Business Disability Forum and the Disability Confident Scheme we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria. The NAO supports flexible working and is happy to discuss this with you at application stage.

Digital Services (DS)

Digital Services (DS) enables the NAO by delivering a resilient, scalable, and strategically aligned IT service architecture that empowers teams to operate efficiently and innovate confidently. Through clearly defined roles, structured governance, and a separation of reactive and proactive workstreams, DS ensures that operational delivery supports the NAO’s broader strategic outcomes. The team’s purpose is rooted in enabling high-quality, secure, and user-focused digital services—spanning Infrastructure, Cloud, Networks, End User Computing (EUC), and service management—while fostering continuous improvement and partner assurance.

Infrastructure Operations Team

The Infrastructure Operations team is part of the National Audit Office's Digital Services. The primary mission of the team is maintaining the NAO’s digital estate. Ensuring the operational availability, accessibility, capacity, security, and continuous improvement of the technologies, infrastructure, systems and services across the digital estate.

Main Responsibilities

• Manage operational support of IT infrastructure solutions and services.
• Manage workload, performance and development of a team of IT operations specialists by building capability to deliver services as required.
• Manage third-party provision of IT operations services.
• Manage provision of expertise to programmes and projects.
• Support the development of architectural designs for IT operations solutions, throughout the service life cycle.
• Assuming ownership for security compliance on the administered digital estate.

DDaT Roles Alignment

This position aligns with the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) profession role of “Lead Infrastructure Operations Engineer” within the Government Digital Service framework. While this serves as a reference point for capability and expectations, the responsibilities of this role extend beyond the standard DDaT definition.

Relationships

• Reporting to: Head of Digital Operations Service Management
• Internal: Digital Services
• External: Multiple third-party support vendors.
• Resources Managed: 3 - Senior Infrastructure Operations Engineer – Problem & Improvement, Infrastructure Engineer – Network Specialist & Infrastructure Engineer – Cloud/M365 Specialist

Security Clearance

NAO DS Operators at this level must be SC cleared as part of the onboarding process.

Detailed Responsibilities

Organisational Admin & Management

• Line-manage and coach a small team of specialists; set clear objectives, standards and development plans.
• Embed consistent ways of working (SOPs, runbooks, RACI, change/checklists) across infrastructure, cloud and network.
• Support structured problem management and continual improvement practices across the team.
• Drive capacity planning and workload transparency using agreed tooling (e.g., dashboards/DevOps), supporting prioritisation of proactive work.
• Lead partner governance meetings; track SLAs/OLAs, service credits, action logs and improvement plans.
• Ensure CMDB/asset lifecycle quality (accuracy, relationships, status transitions, audit readiness) in the ITSM platform.

Service Delivery

• Own operational outcomes for infrastructure, Azure/M365 platforms and network services to agreed availability, performance and support targets.
• Oversee patching, backup, monitoring and disaster recovery readiness; maintain runbooks and test evidence.
• Govern release/deployment activity with change enablement; validate handover, documentation and early-life support.
• Monitor capacity and performance trends; prevent issues through proactive maintenance, telemetry and alert tuning.
• Coordinate vendor activities; provide assurance that planned works meet technical, security and documentation standards.

Security & Risk

• Enforce security baselines across endpoints, infrastructure and cloud (e.g., Intune/Configuration profiles, Azure hardening, identity controls).
• Manage the vulnerability remediation queue with agreed OLAs; provide GRC/audit evidence and support certification activities.
• Uphold privileged access controls and identity governance (MFA/Conditional Access/PIM where applicable).
• Champion secure-by-design changes via CAB/security gates and ensure operational controls are sustained post-change.

Strategic

• Partner with Service Management and stakeholders to drive adoption of M365 capabilities (Teams, Exchange Online, OneDrive/SharePoint) and endpoint management practices that improve user experience and productivity.
• Support communications, guidance and knowledge artefacts that make services discoverable and easy to consume.
• Identify opportunities for automation and standardisation (scripts, policy-as-code, monitoring/alerting improvements).
• Define and oversee operational validation (test conditions, acceptance criteria, rollback readiness) for infrastructure/cloud changes.
• Shape and maintain the IT Operations roadmap—aligned to the Approved Operating Model and DS priorities.
• Sponsor or contribute to initiatives that reduce reactive workload (problem eradication, telemetry, self-service, standard changes).
• Own the Problem & Improvement function, ensuring root cause analysis, automation, and service enhancement initiatives are embedded across infrastructure and cloud domains.
• Provide inputs to budget planning and cost optimisation (cloud utilisation, licensing).
• Assume lead responsibilities with the design and implementation of digital services.

Support

• Act as an escalation point for major incidents and high-priority service issues; coordinate technical teams and suppliers to restore service and capture follow-ups.
• Oversee the escalation of recurring incidents and problems; ensure structured troubleshooting and known error documentation is maintained.
• Ensure and report on how Problem & Improvement is actively remediating systemic issues and reducing reactive workloads.

Development

• Contribute to tooling enhancements; participate in pilots for new processes and technologies.

Emergency Capacity

• Provide capacity for major and urgent incidents.

Working Environment & Requirements

You’ll work on an agreed support rota to ensure coverage from 08:00 – 18:00, with core hours of 09:00 – 17:00, Monday to Friday, on-site in Victoria, London. Occasional attendance will be required at our Newcastle office with expenses paid for travel and accommodation. Due to the nature of the role, occasional (paid) weekend work as required, and Time-Off-In-Lieu offered for out-of-hours work during Mon-Fri.

Key Skills / Competencies required

Leadership & Governance

• Proven line management of technical specialists: Setting standards, coaching, and building a proactive, user centred culture.
• Strong multi-vendor governance: SLAs/OLAs, service reviews, improvement plans, risk/issue management and commercial awareness.
• Practical command of ITIL practices: Incident, Problem, Change/Release, Request, and Service/Asset & Configuration Management.
• Strong understanding of continual improvement frameworks and automation strategies.

Infrastructure, Cloud & Networking Knowledge

• Working knowledge of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365: Core platform services, identity, policy/governance, monitoring and Exchange Online, Teams, OneDrive/SharePoint, Intune.
• Understanding of on-prem infrastructure services: Windows Server/AD, storage/backup, virtualization and enterprise networking concepts.
• Familiarity with telemetry/monitoring and event/alert workflows: Support SRE style operational assurance.
• Proven experience managing senior technical specialists and problem management functions.
• Familiarity with ITSM tooling and CMDB governance: Supporting operational assurance, asset accuracy, and service readiness.

Security & Risk

• Experience enforcing endpoint and cloud security controls: e.g., Conditional Access/MFA, device compliance, baseline configurations.
• Coordinating vulnerability remediation at scale: Provide measurable outcomes; supplying evidence for/certifications.
• Understanding of privileged access: Segregation of duties and change controls in regulated environments.

Data Driven Operations

• Ability to define and interpret operational metrics and dashboards: Availability, performance, change success, risk posture, user satisfaction.
• Comfortable using ITSM and analytics tooling: Prioritisation, forecasting and reporting.

Projects & Communication

• Stakeholder management and clear communication—translating technical topics to nontechnical audiences; producing SOPs/runbooks and user facing guides.
• Contributing to business cases/estimates and phased delivery plans: balancing risk, cost and user experience.
• Project Leadership: Experience leading cloud migration, modern workplace, or security enhancement projects.
• Internal and External collaboration: Proven experience of managing external technical vendors to deliver high quality digital solutions.

Certifications (desirable)

• ITIL® 4 Foundation or higher
• Microsoft: AZ-104: Microsoft Azure Administrator
• Microsoft: AZ-305: Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
• Microsoft: MS-102: Microsoft 365 Administrator
• PRINCE2® / AgilePM® (or equivalent delivery discipline)

Key Behaviours

• Work in accordance with the NAO’s values and champion our diversity and inclusion strategy.
• Demonstrate a strong commitment to their own self-development, to delivering the NAO’s strategic objectives, and keep themselves up to date on office initiatives and information relevant to their work and specialism.
• Use their knowledge and expertise to deliver high-quality work that supports their team objectives and contributes to organisational priorities.
• Influence and add value by building their understanding and insight into the challenges and perspectives of stakeholders.
• Look for innovative solutions for how we approach work and make suggestions for new ways for how we could deliver work and continuously improve our business processes to make them more efficient and effective.
• Demonstrate an ability to balance tasks and priorities to lead a complex, challenging work package, including supporting the work of others.
• Enable the NAO to lead by example in the delivery of high-quality, efficient business practices and support their teams to do so.
• Comply with corporate responsibilities and support others to do so.
• Take ownership of delivering high-quality work to time and quality standards.
• Proactively look for ways we can improve our ways of working and make suggestions for how these could be implemented.
• Engage confidently with colleagues and clients at all levels to support the delivery of work and build good relationships with key stakeholders.
• Work flexibly to contribute to a range of topics and outputs and take ownership of driving work forward and responding to challenges.

Equal Opportunities and Diversity

Applicants will not be discriminated against on the grounds of any protected characteristic or any other extraneous factor.

Disability and Reasonable Adjustments

Applicants with a disability who wish their application to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme should confirm this when submitting their application. Under this scheme we guarantee an interview to an applicant with a disability who meets the minimum requirements for the role. You should also let our HR team know if you wish us to consider any Reasonable Adjustments at any stage of the process.