Lead System Administrator

derby.ac.uk; East Midlands; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A modern UK university is seeking an Associate Director of Digital Solutions and Services to shape digital strategy and lead system administration. This role offers a hybrid working model, focusing on customer-driven solutions and technological innovation. Candidates should possess a degree in Computer Science or related field and substantial experience in managing complex IT solutions. The university provides a supportive environment with excellent staff benefits, aiming for sustainable practices and continuous improvement.

Benefits

Generous annual leave entitlement

Flexible working environment

Cycle to Work scheme

Discounted onsite gym

Holistic wellbeing benefits

Qualifications

• Significant experience of managing a large and complex solutions landscape.
• Experience of implementing innovative solutions that are customer-focused.
• Demonstrated proficiency in the administration of global integrated solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end release management lifecycle for enterprise applications.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to drive a culture of continuous service improvement.
• Ensure the performance, reliability, and security of diverse systems.

Skills

Attention to detail

Innovative solutions

Cross-functional leadership

Application lifecycle management

Problem-solving skills

Education

Degree in Computer Science or Information Technology

Tools

Powershell

Bash

Python

SolarWinds

Grafana

Job description

Associate Director of Digital Solutions and Services

Hybrid
This role will be based on site, primarily in the named location. Currently, this role offers the opportunity to work remotely, normally 2 day/s a week in line with our Adaptive Working Framework.

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.

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 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.

As part of an innovative team delivering modern digital solutions, the Lead Systems Administrator provides comprehensive functional and operational support for the University’s enterprise and teaching & learning systems.

This role ensures the performance, reliability, and security of a diverse systems portfolio, which includes applications alongside a growing suite of cloud-based platforms such as Blackboard, Oracle Finance, HR systems, Library, Timetable, Academic Tools, ProSuite (Further Education student record system), Hall systems, SharePoint, and Power Platform.

You will lead the end-to-end release management lifecycle, including planning, coordination, and execution of upgrades and updates across production and non-production environments. You will collaborate with functional Subject Matter Experts to research and implement new features and fixes, ensuring continuous improvement and successful delivery of enhancements.

Working across departments and with wider University stakeholders, you will help drive a culture of continuous service improvement and digital transformation. You will support the procurement, development, and maintenance of corporate and academic applications that underpin teaching, learning, and operational excellence—maximising value and minimising risk

With a strong focus on security, accessibility, and data protection, the role also involves exploring emerging technologies to enhance student and staff services, reduce system dependencies, and optimise the University’s digital ecosystemp>

The ideal candidate will have experience of implementing innovative solutions that are customer and future focused and along with significant experience of managing a large and complex solutions landscape.

This will include

• Own the strategic direction and governance of system upgrades, patches, and deployments, ensuring supplier roadmaps are proactively shaped and embedded within long-term Digital Solutions and Services planning
• Demonstrated proficiency in the administration, implementation and maintenance of global integrated enterprise and academic solutions
• Drive cross-functional and change leadership, orchestrating stakeholder engagement to deliver seamless transitions with minimal business disruption
• Deep understanding of application lifecycle management and managing multiple enterprise applications
• Ability to deliver within tight deadlines in a demanding environment
• Attention to detail and determination for excellence
• Strives for continuous improvement and encourages innovation
• Own the strategic direction and governance of system upgrades, patches, and deployments, ensuring supplier roadmaps are proactively shaped and embedded within long-term Digital Solutions and Services planning.
• Drive cross-functional alignment and change leadership, orchestrating stakeholder engagement to deliver seamless transitions with minimal business disruption.
• Establish enterprise-wide rollback and disaster recovery frameworks, embedding rigorous testing protocols and resilience strategies across staging environments.
• Champion system architecture excellence, setting performance benchmarks for availability, scalability, and reliability, and delivering senior leadership insights through performance, incident, and capacity analytics.
• Lead enterprise risk and compliance initiatives, embedding continuous audit cycles and vulnerability management aligned to regulatory and industry standards.
• Enforce data governance policies, ensuring data stewardship, security, and compliance across all managed systems, in collaboration with Digital and Data Services and regulatory bodies.
• Serve as the escalation point for critical system failures, leading resolution teams through complex incident response and root cause analysis.
• Shape the enterprise IT strategy and innovation roadmap, identifying transformational opportunities for process reengineering and system optimisation.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement, driving systemic reviews to enhance operational efficiency and elevate customer and business value.
• Architect automation strategies, overseeing the development of scalable scripting solutions to eliminate manual overhead and improve service agility.
• Lead the design and implementation of configuration management and monitoring systems, ensuring proactive system health management and operational transparency.
• Govern technical documentation standards, ensuring system configurations, procedures, and policies are consistently maintained and accessible.
• Institutionalise knowledge management practices, enabling continuity and capability uplift through structured technical records and learning pathways.
• Act as a strategic partner to business units, translating complex requirements into scalable, value-driven digital solutions.
• Oversee enterprise application portfolios, ensuring alignment with organisational goals across Blackboard, Human Resources, Finance, Library and academic platforms.
• Support in managing strategic vendor relationships, ensuring service level compliance, value delivery, and alignment with enterprise technology objectives.
• Degree in Computer Science or Information technology or related field or equivalent experience

Experience

• Demonstrated proficiency in the administration, implementation and maintenance of global integrated enterprise and academic solutions
• Proven experience of driving and leading OS upgrades, hardware refreshes, and patch releases with minimal downtime
• Proven experience delivering in a high performance multi-disciplinary system administration team
• Significant experience of administering and implementing innovative solutions that are customer and future focused
• Demonstrated proficiency with relevant programming / scripting and source code management (e.g. Powershell, Bash, Python)
• Demonstrated proficiency with application monitoring / tuning / visualisation tools (e.g. SolarWinds, Grafana)
• Demonstrated proficiency in critical thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills with ability to correlate cross-platform technologies

Skills, knowledge & abilities

• Deep understanding of application lifecycle management and managing multiple enterprise applications
• Demonstrated understanding of administer multiple enterprise applications in a complex IT infrastructure
• Ability to own, develop and maintain network systems, processes and work packages within defined technology
• Ability to deliver within tight deadlines in a demanding environment
• Ability to build and maintain broad network of business relationships (internal and external).
• Attention to detail and determination for excellence
• Strives for continuous improvement and encourages innovation
• Develops and utilises expertise for the benefit of customers and colleagues. Can apply knowledge quickly to new challenges

Business requirements

• Willingness to provide support at University events from time to time e.g., Graduation, Clearing and Open Days, (some of these events occur outside of normal working hours, such as evenings and weekends).

Qualifications

• Professional and / or technical qualifications, e.g., PRINCE 2 / ITIL or substantial, applied equivalent experience

Experience

• Experience of managing support contracts, ensuring vendors are compliant with their Service Level Agreements
• Knowledge and experience Software as a service (SaaS)
• Proven experience of developing technical strategies and policies in line with business requirements
• Previous experience within a Higher Education Institution
• Proven experience of Azure services

Skills, knowledge and abilities

• Understanding of configuration management tools and techniques
• Understanding of Information Security best practices
• Understanding of procurement regulations, guidelines, and procedures such as tender processes and IT public sector frameworks
• Generous annual leave entitlement of 38 days inclusive of bank holidays and concessionary days (pro rata)
• 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

For further information and informal enquiries regarding the role, please contact Nick Hinckley, Associate Director Digital Solutions & Services via [e-mail]

For enquiries regarding your application and for sponsorship eligibility, please contact the recruitment team via [e-mail] .

This role is eligible for sponsorship by the University, however, your individual circumstances must meet the criteria set out by UKVI ; this includes meeting the English Language requirement and earning a salary that meets the highest of either the going rate for the SOC code or the minimum salary threshold for the Skilled Worker route (£41,700 per annum, as of 22nd July 2025).

If the role is eligible, but the offered salary is less that the going rate for the role, you may still be able to apply for a Skilled Worker visa if:

Your job is on the Immigration Salary List

You’re under 26, studying or a recent graduate, or in professional training

You have a PhD level qualification that’s relevant to your job

You have a postdoctoral position in science or higher education

Please note that the University cannot confirm your eligibility for sponsorship until an offer is made and your individual circumstances have been considered.

The University of Derby is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, regardless of age, disability, trans status, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief (or none), sex and sexual orientation.

We are Disability Confident Employers, demonstrating our commitment to disability inclusion, and invite applicants to highlight adjustments they may require to ensure equitable participation in our recruitment processes.

Further, we are committed to ensuring an environment which is trans and non-binary-inclusive for all our staff, students, partners, and visitors, and continuously review our policies, guidance and training.

When applying to join the University, you can choose your preferred title, including the gender-neutral title 'Mx'. We also ask our candidates if they would like to share their preferred pronouns.This is voluntary but demonstrates our commitment to inclusivity for trans and non-binary candidates.Once employed, you can add pronouns and preferred names onto our system.

The University of Derby undertakes anonymised shortlisting during the staff recruitment process. This means that, when shortlisting, panel members will not be able to see an applicant’s name and will be able to see an applicant number instead. This demonstrates the practical steps we are taking to remove barriers by minimising the possible impact of our unconscious bias.

However you identify, we actively celebrate the knowledge, experience and talents each person brings. Our students come from a wide background; therefore we are particularly interested to hear from applicants who will help our leaders and teams be more reflective of our student population.

At the University of Derby, we are passionate about embedding sustainability into everything that we do. We aim to bring environmental sustainability into all aspects of the University, including teaching, research and operational activities. In line with the University's strategic framework, we expect all our staff to embed sustainability into their working practices and support the University's objective to reach net zero carbon by 2050.

Start your journey to success by applying today.

How to apply

You can apply by submitting an online application. Once you have signed in or registered with us you will be able to begin your application. If you are creating a account for the first time, please ensure you provide an email address that you access regularly as this will be our main means of contacting you regarding your application.

The University reserves the right to close this vacancy early if we receive a high volume of applications. We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

If you require any assistance, including the provision of any documentation in an alternative format, please contact the Recruitment team at [e-mail] .

Please note all applications must be submitted online by Midnight GMT on the closing date of the vacancy.

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.