About us

The IT Operations function manages the University's infrastructure environment from 'Desktop to Datacentre'. The function takes responsibility for a wide range of technologies, from datacentre utilities such as air conditioning and power, Juniper and Cisco networking, SAN on premises, NAS, backup solutions, cloud-based storage, hypervisor layers such as VMWare and Hyper-V and operating systems including flavours of Linux, Solaris, Windows and Apple.

The supported infrastructure is spread over 2 main datacentres and several university sites across Bristol to the UWE Gloucester campus. It includes around 7000 desktops, over 800 servers, approximately 71,000 user accounts and over 5 million emails handled a month.

Managing and maintaining high-performance operational systems and services, the operations function provides a digitally agile, technologically relevant and enabled teaching environment for students, staff and other partners. It is accountable for the operation, maintenance and support of all the existing systems and the operational acceptance of new services and major infrastructure initiatives. And it ensures that all new and enhanced IT is operationally effective and sustainable, by feeding into the overall approach to applications/infrastructure development and future enterprise architecture.

About the role

As Senior IT Systems Engineer, you will be responsible for providing best practice technical expertise in operational support as well as project-based development of a range of IT systems. You will act as a senior member of the team responsible for the implementation, ongoing operational maintenance and support of IT systems and line of business applications.

These are some of the projects you can expect to be involved in:

• Migrate various services to Azure
• Migrate Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams (Direct Routing)
• Upgrade IT systems and Windows servers to the latest versions
• Expand Automation capabilities using Power Automate & DevOps tools (e.g. Ansible, Git)

About you

The successful candidate will have hands-on experience of a large number of the following technologies:

• Windows Server Operating Systems & other Microsoft products (e.g. Active Directory, Skype for Business)
• Microsoft 365 (e.g. Exchange, Intune, Azure AD, SharePoint)
• Microsoft Teams (including voice), Contact centre systems or Cloud Telephony
• Cloud systems (IaaS, PaaS & SaaS)
• VMware and other virtualisation platforms
• PowerShell Scripting

Any previous experience in Agile project management methodologies, supporting collaboration tools and SBCs would be great and if you are keen to migrate services from On-Prem to Cloud then we look forward to hearing from you.

For a full list of essential and desirable specifications, please check out the attached Job Description.

About UWE Bristol

We are a well-established university, with over 30,000 students, 250,000 alumni and 3,600 staff. UWE Bristol is one of the largest providers of Higher Education in the South West. We are globally connected and regionally embedded, with strong employer and partner connections. Students come to study with us from all over the UK, as well as from 140 different countries, making this a diverse and interesting place to study. We achieved 89% overall student satisfaction in the National Student Satisfaction survey in 2018, this excellent result puts us as the top university in the South West and in 7th place nationally. In 2019 we were placed in the Guardian’s Top 30 Universities in the UK and we achieved TEF Gold status.

Bristol itself is a hub of social and cultural activity and is a big pull for students and employers alike. A place with a strong, creative and fiercely independent mindset. A city with a buzzing music scene, great restaurants and interesting business ventures. It’s not surprising Bristol is consistently named as one of the best places to live and work in the UK.

This post is based at our lively Frenchay campus where we have invested in the latest facilities and resources to give our students access to everything they need to succeed – with £300m having been spent recently on new state-of-the-art learning spaces and accommodation to enhance our offer even further. Frenchay campus is within close proximity to excellent motorway links and within walking distance of two train stations, making UWE Frenchay Campus the ideal place to work for those wishing to commute to Bristol.

Further information

This is a permanent post and is full-time working 37 hours per week.

This post is available on a job share basis for applicants wishing to work part time.

The University’s normal practice is that new appointments will be made at the starting point of the grade.

In addition to progressive pay rates, UWE Bristol offers a wide range of employee benefits including:

• a generous holiday allowance of 25 days pro rata, increasing to 30 days after 5 years’ continuous service
• up to 12.5 bank holiday/closure days per year
• flexible working (normal office hours 8.30 – 17.00)
• excellent defined benefit pension schemes
• access to employee assistance programme
• ongoing learning and development opportunities
• family friendly policies and wellbeing initiatives
• onsite nursery at our Frenchay Campus.
• savings on purchases via Wider Wallet scheme
• option to participate in the cycle to work scheme

We particularly encourage applications from BAME applicants as we are currently underrepresented in these areas - although all appointments will be made on merit.

UWE is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity to create an inclusive working environment. We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who share our ambition to be a university recognised for the success and impact of our practice-oriented programmes; our strong industry networks and our inclusive global outlook.

We are able to sponsor qualifying candidates for this role under the Home Office Skilled Worker visa route. Please read our Skilled Worker Guidance to assess if you will be eligible to be sponsored under the criteria.

Please also refer to the Home Office Right to Work Checklist which provides details of which documents are acceptable to prove your right to work in the UK. Should you be shortlisted you will be asked to produce your right to work documents at your interview.