Remote IT Operations & Security Lead - UK (Remote) in Huddersfield

IT Operations & Security Lead

Location:

Remote. Type: Full-time
Every child deserves a better start toward the best possible future. The right educator in the right classroom at the right time can change a child's chances and, at scale, a nation's trajectory. Yet too much of our education system's time, money, and talent are lost to inefficiency.
At Zen Educate, we're changing that through technology: helping schools save millions in tight times, helping educators find work that rewards their skills and fits their lives, and building a better-educated society that invests its best in every child.
Hi, I'm Martin , Chief Technology Officer at Zen Educate, and I'm looking for someone to own Zen's internal IT systems and security as we grow. You'll report directly to me as part of our new Business Systems team, and you'll be the first dedicated hire to replace what has so far been spread across several roles.
I'll lean on you to execute well and to show the way on modern IT and security practice, including automation, governance and AI adoption. Your north star is a clear, proportionate, defensible and scalable IT and security posture , for the company Zen is today and the one it's growing into.
So this probably isn't the role for you if you solely enjoy clearing ticket queues or becoming very good at provisioning accounts by hand.
communicates confidently at every level of the business to get things done;
Zen now has around 600 people across the UK and US (not counting the educators we place in schools), and our IT and security practices need to grow with us.
Up to now, we've kept pace with that growth through good people, manual processes and a few well-kept spreadsheets. More people have joined and more software has been bought. We found two company accounts for the same tool, one with a single admin who didn't know they were an admin. When someone leaves, we work through a long list of accounts to deactivate, with the nagging feeling we've missed one.
We want people at Zen to finish an IT or security request thinking "wow, that was easy", and occasionally "I didn't know we needed that, but I'm glad we have it".
We use a lot of software. You'll build the definitive view of our software and service estate (what we use, who owns it, who has access, what it costs, when it renews) and work with teams and vendors to improve how we buy, renew and retire tools.
Policies are useful. Policies people understand and follow are far more useful.
You'll define and maintain our IT and security policies, then turn them into working processes, technical controls and training that sticks: access reviews, vulnerability management, external testing, incident processes and an easy way to report concerns.
Trust, assurance and compliance

You'll make that evidence easy to provide: security questionnaires, audit evidence, Cyber Essentials and future certifications, risk management and governance. Where security meets privacy, you'll work closely with our Legal and Data Protection advisors.
The device fleet

You'll set a proportionate approach to personal devices alongside endpoint management for our own fleet. you'll make sure every device is set up and provisioned securely, remotely, through to retirement.
A device falls out of compliance. It covers corporate IT and security, not the platform we build as our product.

Product and platform security sits with our Foundations Lead and Engineering. You'll own the systems, access and devices that support it, and help automate it where you can.
Internal data architecture and bespoke data tooling sit with your peer in Business Systems. Here are some that might help you decide whether this is the right role for you. If we end up chatting, feel free to dig into any of them. We see IT as a systems problem, not an administration problem. If something happens repeatedly, challenge whether it still needs a person, whether the answer is scripting, APIs, workflow tools, AI, native platform automation or simply a better process. This is hands-on: you might discuss security posture with leadership in the morning and fix an access workflow in the afternoon. Where a mature tool does the job well, use it rather than building our own. Where nothing does, we'd rather you tried something new, AI included, than accept friction simply because that's how it's always been done.
Security that enables the business. We want stronger security without theatre or needless friction. That takes judgement: telling a meaningful risk from a theoretical one, and both from one we can reasonably accept. Sometimes the answer is to lock something down, sometimes a better process, sometimes to accept the risk and move on. IT and security usually only get noticed when access breaks or someone is told no. We'd like you to change that: a recognisable, approachable go-to person who brings energy to the space, builds confidence in where we stand and follows problems through to the end.
That gives more flexibility in what progression looks like, but means building an understanding of what we value from guiding principles and shared real-world examples.
Expect me to help you think through hard problems, offer perspective and nudge you to grow, not to tell you what to do or check your work. Changing roles is possible too, but depends on business needs.
Level changes are tightly coupled to compensation changes, and are based on sustainably doing great work at your current level. We think it's fairer to invest in what you do next than to reward you for doing the next level first for free.
Compensation

Compensation is based on your competitiveness in your local hiring market (which isn't just where you live). Nobody has found a great solution to global compensation, so we aim to be clear and equitable in how we do it.
Think long term. If you need to prioritise immediate financial gain, this probably isn't the right time to join us.
Remote, but close to the business. This role is remote and serves teams across the UK and US, most of whom aren't in Technology. Diversity is good in some ways and lacking in others. Maybe you were the second or third person in an IT, Corporate IT or Security Operations team while a company grew from a few hundred people to something much larger. You've seen what breaks, helped fix it, and now want to own the playbook.
SaaS governance, vendor and licence management, audits and certification, incident response and data protection.
You should know more about security than I do, understand why controls work well enough to get to grips with any system yourself, and be business-minded enough to apply it in proportion to where Zen is today, knowing which risks actually matter for us.
Recruiter chat. We're most interested in something you took from manual, messy or poorly defined to scalable so feel free to come with a prepared example to discuss. I'll also want to explore how you think about IT and security from a modern perspective (including what good looks like at Zen's stage, and how you'd know we're genuinely there), how you balance the tradeoff between progress and perfection, how you build confidence, and how we'll work together. You'll present to the people you'd work with most closely, across Foundations, Business Systems, People and Finance. We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.