Head of Infrastructure

The IT Department at Winchester College is responsible for the delivery, management, and support of all IT services across the school., The IT Infrastructure Manager serves as the central point of expertise for all infrastructure-related matters, ensuring the stability, security, and performance of the School's IT environment. This role is accountable for maintaining a resilient and high-performing infrastructure, ensuring systems always operate efficiently and reliably reporting to the Director of IT., General

• Provide support for all school sites and activities while upholding the values set by IT Services keeping educators and learners productively connected.
• Maintain a strong understanding of safeguarding responsibilities and procedures.
• Demonstrate a commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children.
• Adhere to school policies and relevant legislation.
• Stay informed about emerging technologies and industry best practices.
• Participate in training and professional development to maintain technical expertise.

Infrastructure Management

• Oversee and manage the School's IT infrastructure, including both on-premises and hosted environments (physical and virtual, including Hyper-V).
• Oversight of school system administration and security, including management of firewalls (Forcepoint), Microsoft platforms (Intune, Azure, Office 365), and WiFi networks and switching infrastructure (Ruckus).
• Ensure optimal system performance, availability, and capacity through continuous monitoring and improvement.
• Administration and reporting of school filtering and monitoring (Lightspeed)
• Maintain ownership of domain registrations and digital certificates, ensuring timely renewals and compliance.
• Manage and maintain infrastructure as related to other systems including CCTV, access control and other IoT devices connected to the schools network.

Leadership & Team Support

• Supervise, mentor, and support the IT team, fostering professional development and knowledge sharing.
• Act as an escalation point for complex technical issues, supporting Service Desk operations.
• Provide leadership to ensure continuity of service and effective succession planning.

Strategy & Planning

• Lead the strategic development of IT infrastructure, including networking and cybersecurity initiatives.
• Collaborate with senior IT colleagues to align infrastructure strategy with organisational goals.
• Support budget planning and forecasting by identifying future infrastructure needs and opportunities including both short and long term planning.

Security & Risk Management

• Take ownership of user and infrastructure security, including account disablement, patch management, vulnerability mitigation, and risk assessment.
• Ensure systems are resilient against threats through proactive planning and monitoring.

Backup, Recovery & Continuity

• Manage backup and recovery processes, ensuring secure storage, regular testing, and adherence to best practices.
• Contribute to business continuity and disaster recovery planning, testing, and maintenance.

Projects & Documentation

• Lead infrastructure-related projects, delegating tasks where appropriate while maintaining overall accountability.
• Develop, implement, and maintain IT policies, procedures, and documentation.
• Ensure all infrastructure documentation is accurate, comprehensive, and up to date.

Supplier & Service Management

• Manage relationships with external vendors and service providers, ensuring services meet the school's requirements.

Additional Duties

• Undertake tasks as directed by the Director of Information Technology.

• Solid understanding of networking principles and technologies.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft 365 environments.
• Expertise in identity and access management, including Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID.
• Experience with hybrid environments across physical, virtual, and cloud platforms (e.g. Microsoft 365, Intune & Azure).
• Experience with infrastructure management including firewalls, networking switching and Wi-Fi systems. Experience of Ruckus solutions is desirable.
• Familiarity with cloud backup, recovery, and disaster recovery processes.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.

Personal Attributes

• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Collaborative and team-oriented approach.
• Enthusiastic about IT and emerging technologies.
• Proactive and eager to expand technical knowledge.
• Organised with the ability to manage priorities effectively.
• Approachable and confident communicator.

• Monday to Friday, 08:00-17:00. Flexibility required to respond to incidents outside standard hours when necessary.
• Full-time position (52 weeks per year).
• 25 days annual leave plus up to 3 discretionary days over the Christmas period.
• Bank holidays during term time are considered normal working days.

As Winchester College is an educational establishment, a condition of employment will be that the successful candidate must consent to the school obtaining an Enhanced Level Disclosure Check through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). This will reveal all spent and unspent convictions, warnings, cautions and bind-overs. A policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders is available on the school's website. Safeguarding is one of the primary responsibilities of this role. The jobholder is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children and young persons for whom they are responsible, or with whom they come into contact with, and will need to adhere to and ensure compliance with the school's Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy at all times. The postholder should be conversant with the responsibilities and procedures detailed in this policy and with the Department for Education's Keeping Children Safe in Education. If, in the course of carrying out the duties of the post, the postholder becomes aware of any actual or potential risks to the safety or welfare of children in the school, they must report any concerns to the school's Designated Safeguarding Lead, or in their absence, the Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads.