Lead Infrastructure Engineer (Identity) (0331-26) – Derby, DE22 1GB
About the University
We have one simple promise – to make a positive impact. Through our ground-breaking research, teaching excellence and commitment to sustainable living, we are changing lives for the better.
The University of Derby is a modern university with a modern outlook. Everything we do is driven by delivering excellence and opportunities for our students, our staff and our region.
We have some of the best university facilities in the UK and achieve outstanding results for our teaching and research and have been awarded Gold in the prestigious Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) 2023 – making it one of the top universities in the country recognised for its outstanding student experience and student outcomes.
Financially strong and seriously ambitious we offer our employees an inclusive culture that centres itself around staff wellbeing, where you can be confident you will receive all the help and encouragement you need to build a rewarding career with lots of opportunities to enhance your skills.
About the College/Department
Digital Solutions & Services are responsible for providing the digital platform to enable the best possible service to staff, students and stakeholders across the University and beyond. We take a collaborative approach to developing strategic goals to provide a diverse range of information technology and business services designed to support learning, teaching and research at the University of Derby.
Digital Solutions & Services are responsible for ensuring that the University’s IT capability is fit for purpose, future focused and able to protect, support and enhance the full breadth of services that will be delivered either on campus or digitally online with contributions across the department. We aim to assist students, teaching staff, support departments and collaborative partners to ensure we are making an impact on the University’s current and future digital landscape
About the Role
As Lead Infrastructure Engineer (Identity), you will take a leading technical role in transforming the University’s identity and access services, helping us move from traditional on-premises Active Directory and synchronisation-based identity towards a modern, cloud-native Microsoft Entra-first architecture.
You will help define and deliver our identity roadmap, developing secure and resilient services built around Zero Trust, passwordless authentication, identity governance and automated identity lifecycle management. Working with HR, Information Security, application owners and Service Delivery, you will help modernise how identities are created, managed, governed and secured across the University.
The role has a strong focus on Microsoft Entra ID and Entra ID Governance, Conditional Access, Privileged Identity Management, Microsoft Graph and automation, alongside the Azure and hybrid infrastructure that supports these services. You will also help develop API-based integration with authoritative HR and student identity sources, reducing manual processes and our dependency on legacy identity infrastructure.
This is a 2-year fixed-term transformation opportunity with the chance to make a significant and lasting impact on the University’s technology landscape. You will lead and support key projects that improve security, simplify the experience for students and staff, increase automation and establish the identity foundations needed to support the University’s future digital services.
About You
The ideal candidate will have significant experience of delivering and supporting enterprise identity solutions within Microsoft cloud and hybrid environments. You will have a passion for modernising identity services and a desire to take established, often complex identity processes and transform them into secure, automated and cloud-native services.
You will be comfortable taking technical leadership of identity solutions, helping shape our journey from traditional Active Directory and synchronisation-based identity towards an Entra-first, Zero Trust approach. You will combine strong technical knowledge with the ability to work across teams, solve complex problems and turn strategic direction into practical solutions that improve security and the experience of our students and staff.
You will bring a range of identity, cloud and automation skills such as (see job description for full role details):
- Significant experience administering and engineering Microsoft Entra ID and Active Directory, including hybrid identity and directory synchronisation.
- Strong knowledge of Conditional Access, authentication, Single Sign-On, role-based access control and privileged identity controls.
- Experience of Entra ID Governance, including Access Reviews, Entitlement Management, Lifecycle Workflows and Privileged Identity Management (PIM).
- Experience automating identity lifecycle and infrastructure services using PowerShell, Microsoft Graph APIs and workflows.
- Experience designing and delivering secure, resilient and scalable solutions across Azure and hybrid Microsoft environments.
- Experience integrating identity and access controls with applications, cloud services and authoritative data sources.
- An understanding of Zero Trust, identity security, privileged access, audit and logging, together with a drive to automate and continually improve services.
Most importantly, we are looking for someone who wants to help shape what identity at the University looks like in the future, not simply maintain what we have today.
Benefits
- Generous annual leave entitlement of 38 days inclusive of bank holidays and concessionary days (pro rata)
- Local Government Pension Scheme
- Suite of holistic wellbeing benefits and support including family-friendly policies, generous sick pay provision and comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme
- Access to a variety of staff discounts at high street retailers
- Discounted onsite gym
- Holiday purchase
- Cycle to Work scheme
- A flexible working environment
- A commitment to personal and professional development
Key Contact
For further information and informal enquiries regarding the role, please contact Steve Smith, Cloud Infrastructure and Identity Manager via S.Smith1@derby.ac.uk
For enquiries regarding your application and for sponsorship eligibility, please contact the recruitment team via recruitment@derby.ac.uk
Important Information
The University is unable to sponsor the employment of international workers under the Skilled Worker route for this role; however, applications are welcome from candidates who are able to demonstrate an alternative right to work in the UK.
Please visit our website for more information.
The University of Derby is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all our staff, students and children. At the University of Derby, safeguarding is everybody's concern.
Please find our Safeguarding pages including our Safeguarding Policy here.
Closing Date: 25 Nov 2026
Area: Management, Professional and Specialist
Salary: £44,259 to £55,074 per annum (for exceptional performers, there is scope for further progression up to £63,335.10 per annum)
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