Senior IT Specialist

Ascent Ventures is looking for an experienced Senior IT Specialist to join our growing IT team in Manchester. You’ll play a key role in supporting, maintaining and improving IT systems and infrastructure while mentoring junior team members and driving best practices across the department.

Working closely with Operations, Security and Business teams, you’ll contribute to the technical direction of our IT environment and help deliver reliable, secure systems that support business growth.

Key Responsibilities

• Support, maintain and troubleshoot IT systems, networks and infrastructure.
• Lead technical investigations and resolve escalated support issues.
• Assist with system upgrades, migrations and rollouts.
• Review work and mentor junior IT team members.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver system improvements.
• Ensure IT security, compliance and data protection standards are upheld.
• Contribute to IT policies, documentation and best practices.
• Champion system reliability, performance and user satisfaction.

• 5+ years’ commercial IT support or systems administration experience.
• Strong knowledge of Windows/Linux server environments.
• Experience with networking, security, and system administration.
• Strong understanding of Active Directory, Office 365, and cloud platforms (Azure or AWS).
• Experience troubleshooting hardware, software and network issues.
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills.

Desirable

• Relevant IT certifications (CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, or similar).
• Experience with IT service management tools (ServiceNow, Jira Service Desk).
• Knowledge of scripting or automation (PowerShell, Python).
• Experience mentoring team members or leading IT projects.
• Background in cybersecurity or compliance.

Pulled from the full job description

• Annual leave
• Life insurance
• Employee assistance programme
• Free parking
• Company pension
• Private medical insurance
• Cycle to work scheme, * Annual performance bonus
• Hybrid working (3 days office / 2 days home)
• 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
• Enhanced pension contribution
• Private medical insurance
• Life assurance (4x salary)
• Annual salary review
• £1,500 annual learning & development budget
• Paid professional certifications
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption leave
• Free on-site parking
• Regular team socials and company events

Apply

If you’re passionate about keeping IT systems running smoothly, enjoy solving complex technical challenges and want to work with a collaborative team, we’d love to hear from you.

Pay: £50,000.00-£53,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Free parking
• Life insurance
• On-site parking