Platform Discipline Lead (Cloud, Hybrid Cloud & Infrastructure)

At Sword, we’re on a mission to redefine how organisations experience technology and data services. With over 600 professionals in the UK and a global presence, we’ve evolved from traditional support models into a strategic partner delivering secure, scalable, and sector-specific managed IT services. Our Managed Services function has grown to become a cornerstone of our digital services offering. We provide customers with reliable, cost-effective services that empower their teams and streamline operations.

The Platform Discipline Lead heads up the Platform Centre of Excellence (CoE), encompassing cloud, hybrid cloud, and on-premises infrastructure services. This role ensures that all platform related services are delivered to agreed service levels, aligned with the customer’s IT strategy, governance, and security standards. The Platform Lead acts as the key technical and operational interface between the managed service provider, the customer’s IT leadership, and third-party vendors.

What the opportunity looks like:

• Service Leadership: Own the delivery and continuous improvement of all platform services (compute, storage, backup, cloud operations, virtualization, and data centre services).
• Customer Alignment: Act as the primary platform subject matter expert and escalation point for the customer’s IT leadership and stakeholders.
• Governance Performance: Monitor, report, and improve performance against SLAs, KPIs, and contractual obligations for platform services.
• Architecture Roadmap: Collaborate with enterprise and solution architects to evolve the customer’s infrastructure and cloud roadmap, ensuring alignment with business objectives and modernization initiatives.
• Vendor Partner Management: Manage relationships with key infrastructure and cloud service providers (e.g., Microsoft, AWS, VMware, hardware vendors), including license, support, and performance management.
• Incident Problem Management: Oversee critical incidents, root cause analysis, and service restoration activities, ensuring timely communication and resolution.
• Change Release Oversight: Provide technical validation and risk assessment for infrastructure and platform changes.
• Continuous Improvement: Drive automation, standardization, and optimization initiatives to improve reliability, performance, and cost efficiency.
• Team Leadership: Provide guidance to engineers and specialists within the platform team, ensuring technical excellence and professional development.

Requirements:

• Customer Partnership: Demonstrates a strong service ownership mindset, focused on customer outcomes and satisfaction.
• Leadership Influence: Leads technical teams with clarity, sets direction, and builds collaboration across disciplines and suppliers.
• Strategic Thinking: Aligns platform initiatives with the customer’s long-term technology and business strategies.
• Operational Excellence: Applies ITIL principles to ensure consistent, reliable, and measurable service delivery.
• Vendor Management: Skilled in negotiating, managing, and governing multiple vendor relationships to achieve value and accountability.
• Technical Depth: Strong expertise in hybrid cloud architectures, automation, virtualisation, storage, networking, and security integration.
• Problem Solving: Analytical and pragmatic in resolving service issues and driving root cause elimination.
• Communication: Clear and confident communicator with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Continuous Improvement Mindset: Looks for opportunities to enhance efficiency, cost control, and service quality through innovation.

Skills Experience:

• Deep technical understanding of hybrid cloud and infrastructure domains (Azure, M365, AWS, Nutanix, VMware, storage, and backup).
• Proven experience managing large scale enterprise infrastructure services.
• Strong vendor management and service governance skills.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication abilities.
• ITIL Foundation or higher certification preferred.
• Experience in leading platform transformation or cloud migration initiatives desirable.

Benefits:

At Sword, our core values and culture are based on caring about our people, investing in training and career development and building inclusive teams where we are all encouraged to contribute to achieve success. We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life. In addition to a Competitive Salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:

• Personalised Career Development: We create a development plan customised to your goals and aspirations, with a range of learning and development opportunities within a culture that encourages growth.
• Flexible working: Flexible work arrangements to support your work-life balance.
• A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes, an employee assistance programme, discounted cash plan and more.

At Sword we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer, ensuring that all applicants receive fair and equal consideration for employment, regardless of whether they meet every requirement. If you don’t tick all the boxes but feel you have some of the relevant skills and experience we’re looking for, please do consider applying and highlight your transferable skills and experience. We embrace diversity in all its forms, valuing individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation. Your perspective and potential are important to us. If we can do anything to help make the hiring process more accessible, please let our talent acquisition team know when you apply so we can support any adjustments.