Alternatively, Grant Thornton

At Grant Thornton we do things differently - looking to the future, driving ambitious growth and pioneering positive change in our industry. Providing audit, tax and advisory services, we empower clients through strategic insight, curiosity, and genuine partnership. And we empower our people with real opportunity, an inclusive culture and work life balance. A true alternative.

With over 5,000 people in the UK, and a presence in 150 global markets, we're on an ambitious journey, from great to exceptional, and we need the best people to help us achieve our potential. And with that comes the opportunity to help redefine what our industry looks like, and what you want from your career.

Job Description:

MORE THAN YOU EXPECTED

Grant Thornton UK LLP is part of a global network of independent audit, tax and advisory firms, made up of some 58,000 people in over 135 countries. We're a team of independent thinkers who put quality, inclusion and integrity first. All around the world we bring a different experience to our clients. A better experience. One that delivers the expertise they need in a way that goes beyond. Personal, proactive, and agile. That's Grant Thornton.

NEW GROUND WON’T BREAK ITSELF.

Every day our teams help people in businesses and communities to do what is right and achieve their goals.

You’ll own the technology estate the firm depends on and shape what it becomes next. This is a senior leadership role with full accountability for the availability, performance and resilience of our infrastructure, alongside a clear mandate to drive our shift to a cloud-first, Microsoft-centred architecture. You will keep the foundations reliable, resilient and scalable and make sure the enabling services built on them genuinely help the firm work, deliver and grow. 

You'll lead the Infrastructure & Operations function and be the senior technical authority on infrastructure, hosting and platform decisions. You'll manage and develop the team, own key supplier relationships, and work closely with security, applications, service management and transformation colleagues to keep day-to-day operations dependable while building the platform a regulated professional services firm needs to move forward. The estate today is predominantly Microsoft (M365, Azure, Entra ID) alongside private cloud and a growing number of SaaS platforms. 

We’re happy to talk flexible working and consider reduced hours and job shares, we’ll support you to balance your work and life.

A look into the role

As a Head of IT infrastructure and Operations within our team, you will be responsible for following:

Cloud & Azure architecture  

• Own and evolve the firm’s cloud strategy and target-state architecture, with a clear bias towards Azure and a cloud-first operating model. 

• Lead the design, build and ongoing optimisation of Azure landing zones, networking, identity integration, governance and cost management. 

• Set the architectural standards, reference patterns and guardrails that teams build against. 

• Lead FinOps practice; monitoring, forecasting and optimising cloud spend, and holding teams accountable for cost-efficient design. 

Infrastructure & operations 

• Hold overall accountability for the core infrastructure estate and the enabling services it provides. This includes availability, performance, capacity and resilience across the Microsoft 365 and Azure environment, the firm’s wider SaaS platforms, networking, endpoint and identity. 

• Keep infrastructure performing to agreed service levels, with effective monitoring, alerting and reporting in place. Champion automation and self-healing capabilities with a zero-ticket mindset, reducing manual intervention and driving towards automated remediation at scale. 

• Provide senior technical leadership on major infrastructure incidents and problems, working alongside the service management team and driving root-cause resolution. 

• Stay ahead of patching, lifecycle management and technical currency across the estate. 

• Own the managed service provider (MSP) relationship(s), ensuring service delivery against contracted SLAs and OLAs. 

• Govern third-party-delivered services through structured service reviews, performance reporting and clear escalation paths. 

Resilience & continuity 

• Own IT disaster recovery and infrastructure business continuity planning, including regular testing and assurance. 

• Run the infrastructure estate in line with the security policies, standards and controls set by the CISO. 

• Make sure infrastructure and SaaS platforms are configured, hardened and integrated into the firm’s identity and security standards, and drive timely remediation of risks and vulnerabilities. 

Leadership & people 

• Lead, manage and develop the Infrastructure & Operations team, setting clear objectives, standards and a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. 

• Shape the team's ways of working so infrastructure can support agile project delivery and system implementations, not just steady-state operations. 

• Manage and develop key supplier and vendor relationships, holding them to commercial and service commitments. 

Strategy & transformation 

• Contribute to the wider IT and digital strategy as a member of the IT leadership team. 

• Ensure the infrastructure platform is ready to support the firm’s transformation agenda, including the secure adoption of enterprise AI tooling and modern data platforms. 

• Translate business and regulatory requirements into pragmatic, scalable technical roadmaps. 

Knowing you’re right for us

Joining us as a Head of IT infrastructure and Operations within, the minimum criteria you’ll need is

• Senior-level experience leading IT infrastructure and operations, ideally in a regulated or professional services environment. 

• Expertise in cloud architecture, with demonstrable depth in Microsoft Azure (landing zones, networking, identity, governance, cost management). 

• Strong track record of migrating and modernising workloads to cloud or hybrid models, and of running production cloud environments at scale. 

• Solid command of the Microsoft 365 / Microsoft cloud ecosystem and enterprise identity (Entra ID), including integrating third-party SaaS platforms into a centralised identity and security model. 

• A track record of owning service availability, major incident management and supplier commercials. 

• Experience managing MSP relationships, including SLA/OLA governance, service reviews and third-party performance management. 

• A people leader who can build, develop and retain a high-performing team. 

• Someone who can talk to engineers and the leadership teams with equal credibility. 

It would be great if you had some of the following skills, but don’t worry if you don’t tick every box, we’ll help you develop along the way.

• Relevant certifications (e.g. Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or equivalent). 

• Experience embedding FinOps and cloud cost-optimisation disciplines. 

• Familiarity with modern endpoint management, identity-centred security models and SaaS governance tooling, with exposure to operating within ISO 20000, 27001, Cyber Essentials Plus or equivalent compliance frameworks. 

• Exposure to enterprise data platforms and to the secure operationalisation of AI tooling. 

• Comfortable working within established, ITIL-aligned service management practices led by a separate function. 

Knowing we’re right for you

Embracing uniqueness, the culture at Grant Thornton thrives on the contributions of all our people, we never settle for what is easy, we look beyond to deliver the right thing, for everyone.  Building an inclusive culture, where we value difference and respect our colleagues helps our people to perform at the best of their ability and realise their potential.

Our open and accessible culture means you’ll interact with leaders who are interested in you and everything you bring to our firm. The things that set you apart, we value them. That’s why we give you the freedom to bring your whole self to work and pursue your passions inside and outside of work.

We’re also committed to supporting you through different life stages, with a range of family friendly and wider leave policies. You can find full details of our reward, benefits and leave policies on our website: Reward and benefits.

Beyond the job 

Life is more than work. The things you do, and the people you’re with outside of work matter, that’s why we’re happy to look at flexible working options for all our roles, and we’ll always do our best to keep your work and life in balance.

The impact you can make here will go far beyond your day job. From secondments, to fundraising for local charities, or investing in entrepreneurs in the developing world, you’ll be giving back to society. It’s that drive to do the right thing that runs through our every move, grounded in our firm’s values – purposefully driven, actively curious and candid but kind.

We’re looking for people who want to contribute, spark fresh ideas and go beyond expectations. People who want to be able to proudly do what’s right, for the firm, our clients, our people and themselves. It’s how it should be.

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