The company is seeking an experienced Lead Systems Engineer with extensive security and disaster recovery experience to provide technical leadership ensuring that Operating Companies (OpCos) implement and maintain effective security controls, disaster recovery (DR), and business continuity measures in line with Group policies.
In addition to hands-on engineering responsibilities, this role includes team leadership and capability development, ensuring that local and central engineering teams are effectively guided, supported and aligned with Group strategy.
This hands-on role will leverage strong systems engineering expertise to support local IT teams in defining, implementing, and rigorously testing Disaster Recovery plans, as well as enhancing defences against ransomware and other cyber threats.
Key relationships
Systems Engineers will work closely with the Group Infrastructure team, as well as local IT and operations teams in each operating company.
They will collaborate with the CISO and wider security operations function to align infrastructure controls with group security strategy, provide technical guidance to application owners and platform specialists.
Responsibilities include:
✓Security Engineering & Compliance
Oversee and coordinate security engineering activities across teams, ensuring consistent standards and effective delivery.
✓Guide OpCos in the deployment, configuration, and optimisation of security tools (e.g. Entra, MFA, SSO, Endpoint protection, Network segmentation, PAM, SIEM, Backup and recovery solutions).
✓Review local and cloud implementations to ensure technical alignment with Group security standards, toolsets, monitoring and reporting requirements. 4Assist in incident response activities, particularly ransomware scenarios, ensuring containment and recovery are technically robust.
✓Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity
Partner with local IT teams to design and document DR plans for critical business systems. Across a wide range of cloud and on-premises infrastructure, including Windows, Linux, Containerised and Cloud native environments.
✓Lead technical DR testing exercises, including Tabletop, system failover, systems and data recovery, and backup validation.
✓Analyse test outcomes, identify gaps, and provide practical remediation guidance.
✓Ensure recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) are understood, realistic and met.
✓Coordinate cross-team DR readiness efforts and ensure accountability for remediation actions.
✓Technical Support & Collaboration
Act as a technical mentor to local IT teams, providing engineering-level guidance on system hardening, patch management, and resilience strategies.
✓Provide day-to-day leadership to engineers, including task prioritisation, workload management and technical oversight.
✓Conduct knowledge sharing sessions and promote best practices across teams.
✓Develop standardised runbooks and technical playbooks for ransomware prevention, response, and recovery.
✓Continuous Improvement
Work with the CISO and Security team to track emerging security threats and recommend technical improvements to security and resilience tooling.
✓Support the integration of cloud-based and on-premises systems into DR strategies.
✓Provide input into Group-wide security awareness initiatives, ensuring technical accuracy.
✓Strong background as a Systems Engineer / Infrastructure Engineer with significant exposure to IT Security and resilience.
✓Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring systems engineering teams in a technical environment
✓Proven track record in designing and testing Disaster Recovery solutions across multiple technology stacks.
✓Familiarity with backup solutions, replication technologies, and high-availability architectures.
✓Knowledge of cybersecurity frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST, CIS Controls) and security tooling (EDR, SIEM, vulnerability management).
✓Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills in complex environments.
✓Strong interpersonal skills, able to engage effectively with global teams.
✓Proven experience with zero trust security models in hybrid environments, least privilege enforcement, Privileged Access Management (PAM),
✓Strong knowledge of networking (routing, firewalls, segmentation, VPN, DNS, load balancers).
✓Practical expertise in AWS and/or Azure platforms, IAM, and cloud security controls.
✓Administration and hardening of VMware vSphere infrastructure.
✓Hands-on experience with Kubernetes.
✓Proficiency with Windows Server and Linux.
✓Advanced scripting and automation skills (PowerShell, Python, Bash, Terraform, Ansible).
✓Experience managing M365/Entra ID, SSO, MFA, and conditional access.
✓Experience with vulnerability management using tools such as Tenable.io.
✓Experience working in multi-national environments with diverse technical standards.
✓Knowledge of telecoms or IoT-related infrastructure.
✓The opportunity to work for an entrepreneurial Company
✓Full training, ongoing support, and the tools you need to grow and develop in your role
✓We are a company with a heart and who genuinely values and respects its employees
✓A key role in delivering and strengthening resilience across a global organisation.
✓Opportunities to drive critical disaster recovery and security initiatives across multiple regions.
✓Exposure to complex hybrid cloud and telecoms infrastructure
United Kingdom·Readinglead