Head of Infrastructure in Liverpool

Grade and salary: Grade 9 £61,759 - £75,917

Working hours: Full time 35 hours per week/FTE

Location: Hybrid working, Liverpool campus

Faculty: IT Services

Closing Date : 26th October 2026

The University of Liverpool is one of the great centres of research, knowledge and innovation. Their pioneering reputation as a Russell Group University attracts students, experts and partners from around the world.

The primary purpose of the Head of IT Infrastructure Operations role, is to be fully accountable for ensuring all systems across the Data Centres, Platforms and Network & Telephony environments remain highly available, stable, monitored and maintained, in line with the strategic and operational objectives of IT Services.

It is your responsibility to ensure that technical platforms and services are operational and maintained according to agreed levels of operations. Also, within agreed budgetary and headcount context, the required technical resources and services must be available to enable the delivery of projects and services, according to well defined, understood and agreed plans and requirements.

As the Head of IT Infrastructure, you will act as the line manager for a number of technical managers, who will themselves and their staff, work in a matrix environment, also reporting operationally to project managers.

Resource management involves: managing the performance of teams and team managers; keeping the department informed; providing reward and recognition appropriately and handling conflict. Additionally, the role involves: recruiting and selecting new team managers and members; ensuring induction of new team members; managing learning and development needs and also managing succession planning processes. The Head of Infrastructure is also required to: manage absence; exercise discipline; maintain a healthy and safe workplace; manage processes in relation to leavers and comply with university procedures, policies and legal requirements.

As a member of the IT Service Operational Management Team, you will work with other senior managers to ensure that required changes in technical platforms, capacity, capability and techniques are well understood, defined and planned. You will act as the conduit for communicating and incorporating infrastructure resources requirements into IT Services, strategic and operational plans.

You will interact with IT Services staff at all levels to ensure appropriate levels of service in the production environments. You will keep regular contacts with relevant suppliers and vendors, including establishment and follow-up of Service Level Agreements (SLA) where appropriate.

Key responsibilities and duties:

• Leading, motivating and managing the performance of the Infrastructure team, to deliver a professional, customer focused and high performing operational service that works to an agreed service scope and service level.
• Defining, implementing and promoting an IT Infrastructure Strategy for IT. Defining and maintaining a strategic roadmap for the provision of IT Infrastructure to support all IT activities and services.
• Provision of leadership, steering and direction in relation to the continual operational improvement of each phase of the IT services lifecycle and in particular in relation to the people, processes, products and partnerships required by the ITS IT Infrastructure department to fulfil its purpose.
• The day-to-day management of the IT Services, Systems Rooms and Data Centres including environment and platforms.
• Developing and maintaining relationships with senior management across lines of business and relevant third parties.
• Carrying out effective and timely performance management of the Operations Team in line with University policy.
• Ensuring appropriate continuous professional development to enhance skills and promote cross-skilling in order to meet and support the demands of IT and the business.
• Managing effective planning, monitoring and control processes to ensure the outcomes and results produced by the ITS Infrastructure function align with ITS strategies.
• Providing support, coaching and mentoring to Infrastructure Managers to ensure that all objectives and commitments are fulfilled in line with expectations, agreements and standards.
• Continually reviewing the service provided to end-users and customers to ensure it meets agreed service levels and all customers’ requirements, though, e.g. liaising with stakeholders, conducting customer satisfaction surveys and electronic monitoring. Use this information to produce reports for stakeholders, and to revise and improve the processes and service delivery within the Infrastructure team.
• Managing the effective provision of IT Infrastructure as per agreed plans and according to agreed levels of operation.
• Responsible for staff management and staff development, including performance reviews, overall staff morale and motivation, and general staff well-being.
• Responsible for IT Infrastructure budget management, including the provision of month-end financial reports for senior management; and assistance in shaping financial proposals for input to strategic bids and budget cycle.
• Responsible for defining, reviewing and communicating technical services plans and providing input to the ITS and University planning and budget cycles.
• Manage the effective provision of Infrastructure Team technical resources to all aspects of IT Services (e.g. ITS Projects, ITS Business Apps and ITS Service Desk).
• Maintain the IT Infrastructure technical toolset. (Including Documentation of procedures, Services implementation, Operations Standard Platform Environment).
• Maintain and develop a capacity forecast including a 2-year rolling Capacity Plan with clear identification of shortages and over-capacity projections constraints.
• Manage alerts and incidents in the production environment, and coordinate responses and solutions with IT Services.
• Manage and validate the technical input to the RFC process.
• Manage contracts with external suppliers including SLA’s where appropriate. Ensure regular follow-up meetings with external suppliers in order to ensure optimal service levels.
• For each of the accountabilities outlined in this profile, provide regular financial and performance reports to the Associate Director of IT Infrastructure and Operations.
• Represent and raise the profile of the University at external events, presenting where appropriate.
• Maintain and develop rigorous reporting systems.
• Ensure and monitor that processes are in place to pro-actively protect consistent service quality through rigorous management of change control and acceptance into service within the role responsibilities.
• Meet with internal and external IT Services stakeholders and managers regularly on both a one to one and group meeting basis to review, agree and plan improvements to the cohesiveness and cost-effectiveness of IT services provided to the university.
• Represent IT Services and the University externally to academia and industry, other external bodies and agencies, and strategic partnership suppliers in the UK and internationally when required, ensuring the strategic interests and requirements of IT Services and the University are represented and safeguarded appropriately.
• Identify, maintain and forecast resource requirements within the role responsibilities to meet the service requirements of the customer and develop on-going and continuous Service Improvement Plans that will enhance customers’ IT services and customer service in an efficient and cost-effective manner.
• Provide expert problem management support to difficult high-profile customer issues and ensures root-cause analysis is conducted and a corrective action plan is followed through with any learning applied for future benefit.
• Ensure appropriate continuous professional development to enhance skills and promote cross-skilling in order to meet and support the demands of IT and the business.
• Perform any other duties appropriate to the grade as may be required by the Director/Associate Director Customer Service/Senior Management Team (SMT).
• Bring to the attention of managers any matters relating to the health and safety of staff, students and visitors.
• Maintain effective communications with colleagues across ITS.
• Liaise with University staff at all levels, developing and maintaining quality working relationships with customers and colleagues in order to deliver a high-quality service.
• Work to agreed performance standards, deliver within agreed response times and seek to continually improve working practices and services.
• Ensure sound time management and organisation skills, being able to manage work in response to changing priorities, circumstances and workload.
• Undertake any other related duties which may be required in the management and delivery of IT Services and which are commensurate with the grade.
• Deputise at SMT level when required.

#J-18808-Ljbffr