Overview
In this role you will own and evolve Tes’s critical business and customer‑facing platforms, ensuring security, resilience, and scalability. You’ll partner with stakeholders to translate business needs into robust technical solutions and lead complex changes end‑to‑end. You’ll mentor peers, drive automation, and push best practices to improve service delivery and customer experience. This is a chance to influence platform strategy and impact education at scale.
Pay / Benefits
- 25 days annual leave rising to 30
- 5% pension after probation
- State-of-the-art offices
- My Benefits World access
- Free eye care cover
- Life Assurance Cycle to Work Scheme EAP (Employee assistance programme) Learning and development opportunities
Responsibilities
- Own the reliable, secure, and performant operation of key business and customer‑facing systems
- Ensure systems meet availability, security, compliance, and data integrity standards
- Lead investigation and resolution of complex, high‑severity incidents and root‑cause analysis
- Proactively identify and mitigate technical debt, risks, and performance issues
- Participate in and help shape on‑call support and escalation processes
- Lead the design, implementation, and ongoing optimisation of complex systems, configurations, and integrations
- Translate business strategy and requirements into robust, scalable technical solutions
- Act as a senior technical contributor on projects, providing design authority and assurance
- Plan and execute system upgrades, releases, and major configuration changes with minimal disruption
- Ensure appropriate testing, quality assurance, release management, and documentation practices are followed
- Contribute significantly to platform strategy, roadmap definition, and technology direction
- Evaluate new tools, features, and technologies, making evidence‑based recommendations
- Drive automation, scripting, and process improvements to increase efficiency and reliability
- Promote and embed best practice in systems administration, security, and service management
- Stay current with industry trends and apply relevant innovations to improve Tes’ platforms and services
- Act as a senior point of escalation for technical advice and decision‑making
- Build strong relationships with business, product, delivery, and third‑party partners
- Mentor and support junior and mid‑level administrators, sharing knowledge and raising capability across the team
- Contribute to standards, patterns, and documentation that support consistency and scalability
Key requirements
- Significant hands‑on experience in a Senior Systems Administration or similar role
- Proven experience supporting and enhancing business‑critical platforms such as CRM, finance systems, and/or contact centre technologies
- Demonstrable experience leading complex system changes, integrations, or migrations
- Experience operating within change‑controlled, service‑oriented environments
- Deep knowledge of systems administration principles, including security, access control, data governance, resilience, and lifecycle management
- Strong understanding of how enterprise platforms support end‑to‑end customer journeys and business processes
- Good awareness of service management frameworks, cloud/SaaS operating models, and modern integration patterns
- Expert‑level troubleshooting and problem‑solving skills, with the ability to lead resolution of complex technical issues
- Strong solution‑design capability, balancing technical quality with business value
- Excellent communication and stakeholder‑management skills, able to influence at all levels
- Ability to mentor others, provide technical leadership, and work autonomously with minimal supervision
- Strong documentation, testing, and change‑management discipline
- Degree or equivalent qualification in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related discipline, or substantial equivalent experience
- Relevant professional or vendor certifications (e.g. CRM platforms, cloud technologies, ITIL) are highly desirable
- Excellent communication
- Stakeholder management
- Mentoring and people leadership
- Security, access control, and data governance
- Resilience and lifecycle management of enterprise platforms
- Cloud/SaaS operating models and integrations
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