Azure Platform Manager in Royal Leamington Spa

About us

At National Grid, our commitment to a cleaner, greener energy future is powered by the dedication and ingenuity of our people. Join our team as Azure Platform Manager and be a part of something bigger - where your unique skills and passions can make a real difference. Together, we are superpowered.

National Grid is hiring an Azure Platform Manager on a permanent basis. This position is based in Warwick. You will also have the opportunity to work from our co-working space in London. This role is designated as hybrid, with an expectation of 4-5 days per month in the office. Requirements may vary based on business needs and company policy.

About the role

As Azure Platform Manager, you'll be a senior technical leader within the NGET Platform Team (CIDO). You'll be responsible for the design, operation, support and continual improvement of Azure platform services which underpin our enterprise platform offerings. This role is critical to enabling NGET's digital transformation, providing deep cloud expertise that empowers product and platform teams while ensuring safety, security, compliance and operational excellence. The role forms part of our CIDO platform leadership team and will be accountable for:

• Working with our Central Infrastructure and Operations function to develop and manage the Azure roadmap in conjunction with business needs.
• Developing and managing a unified service offering for the central platform teams leveraging Azure PaaS and IaaS components (AKS, etc.).
• Developing and implementing NGET's observability strategy in conjunction with our infrastructure and operations group and communication to our federated digital teams.
• Developing platform standards, guardrails and infrastructure as code patterns aligned to enterprise architecture and cyber security policies.
• Supporting both change and run teams to ensure platforms are robust, resilient, observable and scalable.
• Developing a Site Reliability Engineering capability in NGET to ensure we use code and automation technologies to meet the resilience failover requirements of our business.

What you'll do

• Define and deliver the Azure platform strategy and roadmap, aligning cloud capabilities with business objectives and digital transformation goals.
• Lead the design, operation, and continuous improvement of enterprise scale Azure platform services (PaaS and IaaS).
• Provide senior technical leadership for cloud infrastructure operations, driving automation, resilience, performance optimization, and operational excellence.
• Establish and govern platform standards, guardrails, architecture principles, and infrastructure as code patterns in line with enterprise architecture and security policies.
• Own and evolve solution architectures for complex, multi project initiatives, balancing cost, quality, scalability, and operational requirements.
• Drive adoption of DevOps, SRE, and observability practices, ensuring platforms are robust, resilient, and measurable.
• Collaborate across central infrastructure, operations, and federated digital teams to promote standardization and reuse where it benefits the enterprise.
• Lead cloud financial management activities, supporting budgeting, forecasting, cost optimization, and audit compliance.
• Oversee the full platform/product lifecycle, from planning and design through launch, optimization, and retirement.
• Ensure business continuity and resilience, including development, testing, and continuous improvement of continuity management plans.
• Identify and implement business process improvements, leveraging automation and emerging technologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Build and maintain strong stakeholder relationships, acting as a trusted advisor and primary point of contact for Azure platform services.
• Provide line management and people leadership, fostering engagement, capability development, and effective ways of working.

About you

• Ability to successfully operate at a senior manager level, forming strong relationships and engagement as needed across all levels of the Business Entity.
• Experience of operating Platforms with a product mindset including roadmap definition/delivery with evidence of focus on developer experience (dev/ex).
• DevOps experience including the use of Terraform, GitOps, GitHub actions or similar technologies.
• SRE/Observability experience.
• Deep expertise in Azure PaaS, AKS, Kubernetes operations, containerisation and event driven architectures.
• Strong understanding of observability, metrics, logging and distributed tracing patterns (OpenTelemetry).
• Experience working in federated, matrixed delivery environments.
• Knowledge of security, identity, networking, FinOps and governance in cloud environments.
• Proven ability to provide technical leadership, consultancy and coaching.
• Demonstrable experience providing cloud platform management services to distributed internal teams.
• Good leadership, relationship, communication, and presentation skills combined with a good track record of delivery.
• Experience of strategic, investment and product planning ensuring alignment with business strategy and priorities.

What you'll get

• Competitive Salary.
• Bonus of up to 30% based on personal and company performance.
• Additional benefits:

• A competitive contributory pension scheme where we will double match your contribution to a maximum company contribution of 12%.
• Flexible benefits such as a cycle scheme, share incentive plan, technology schemes.
• Access to apps such as digital GP service for round the clock access to GP video consultations and NHS repeat prescriptions, wellbeing app to support your health and fitness.
• Access to Work + Family Space, providing support and resources for work and family life, including paid emergency childcare and eldercare.

More Information

The closing date for this vacancy is 12th May. However, we encourage candidates to submit their applications as early as possible and not to wait until the published closing date. National Grid's recruitment periods can and may vary. We reserve the right to remove this advert or close it to further applications at any point during the recruitment process.

Please note that in most cases, National Grid is unable to offer sponsorship for employment under the UK points-based immigration system. As such, applicants must have the legal right to work in the UK without requiring sponsorship now or in the future under the UK points-based immigration system. However, in exceptional circumstances where there is a clear and demonstrable need for specialist skills that cannot be sourced from the local labour market, National Grid may consider offering sponsorship. All applications are welcome from candidates who meet these requirements, regardless of race, nationality, or ethnic origin.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

National Grid is an equal opportunity employer that values a broad diversity of talent, knowledge, experience and expertise. We foster a culture of inclusion that drives employee engagement to deliver superior performance to the communities we serve. National Grid is proud to be an affirmative action employer. We encourage minorities, women, individuals with disabilities and protected veterans to join the National Grid team.