Principal Infrastructure Operations Engineer
Job summary
We are looking for a Principal Infrastructure Operations Engineer to play a key role in ensuring the IT team supports the organisation to fulfil its statutory and corporate responsibilities.
Strong, demonstrable hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure is essential as youll be leading the design, engineering and lifecycle of Azure and M365. This role would suit somebody who is proactive, can work effectively as part of a team and can balance competing priorities.
Closing date: Midnight, Sunday 31 May 2026 (we reserve the right to close this role early, should we receive sufficient applications. You are therefore advised to apply for this role when you see it).
To progress this application, you will need to provide evidence of your right to work in the UK. We are unable to offer sponsorship for this role.
No agency contact please - we will not be considering agency CV's
Interview date: w/c 15 June 2026 (in person at 2 Redman Place, London)
Main duties of the job
This role provides strategic and operational leadership for the HFEAs cloud environments, infrastructure, networks, and cyber security functions, ensuring best practices are followed so the HFEAs systems are secure and effective as possible. You will have direct responsibility for a team of two (IT Service & Systems Manager and IT Support Engineer) and will be responsible for managing an ongoing roadmap for service and security improvements. This is an exciting opportunity to work in a fascinating area of public health.
About us
The HFEA is the UK's independent regulator overseeing safe and appropriate practice in fertility treatment and embryo research. We license and monitor clinics carrying out IVF, donor insemination, and human embryo research.
This post is offered as either office based (in which case you will need to attend the office at least one day per week) or home based (in which case office attendance will be specified by your line manager based on business need). Our office is in Stratford, east London, in attractive new premises on the edge of the Olympic Park, alongside several other health Arms Length Bodies. In addition to flexibility and hybrid working we offer generous annual leave and pension arrangements.
The HFEA is a member of the Community Race and Work Charter and the Disability Confident Charter. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and supportive working environment that is free from any form of discrimination. We recognise that there are real benefits of having a diverse community of staff and aim for our workforce to be truly representative of all sections of society. Additionally, we adopt a culture that hopes to attract and retain talented individuals that want to work with us.
Benefits include 27.5 days annual leave per annum and entry into the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
In November 2024 and November 2025, the HFEA was awarded People Insight's Outstanding Workplace Award.
Job description
Job responsibilities
The HFEA is currently undergoing a significant period of change to our core legacy systems and moving to modern cloud-based native environments. The systems are a mix of Azure Virtual Machine workloads, native Azure Cloud Services and enterprise systems, such as Microsoft Dynamics and Power Platform.
This role provides strategic and operational leadership for the HFEAs cloud environments, infrastructure, networks, and cyber security functions, ensuring best practices are followed so the HFEAs systems are secure and effective as possible.
This role manages the workload, performance and development of a team of two direct reports (IT Service & Systems Manager and IT Support Engineer) and will develop the strategic and tactical roadmaps for technologies and services, ensuring they are future-proofed and the organisation derives maximum value from investment in technologies.
The HFEA has dedicated software development, information and data analysis teams and this role will work closely with these teams to ensure their infrastructure needs and DevOps are well supported.
This role will be involved in regular audits, including the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF-aligned) NHSs Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT), an enhancement of the NCSCs existing cyber framework with a health and care overlay which covers data protection, confidentiality, and other information governance disciplines. They will work with strategic external partners and suppliers, such as information security specialists and the NHS Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC).
Key responsibilities
1. Develop and deliver the cloud, infrastructure, and security strategy, ensuring alignment to the wider organisations strategy.
2. Own and lead the design, engineering, and lifecycle management of Azure, M365, identity management, networking and monitoring platforms.
3. Work towards embedding secure-by-design, privacy-by-design and resilience principles across all platforms.
4. Lead a team of two direct reports; IT Service & Systems Manager and IT Support Engineer and manage the workload, performance and development of the team.
5. Lead on cybersecurity operations, incident response, vulnerability management, threat management, and compliance activities with support from external partners, such as the NHS CSOC and other security partners.
6. Lead on technical operations, ensuring stability, capacity and performance across infrastructure and cloud services.
7. Lead and manage on key IT infrastructure programmes and projects and participate in business planning activities so that projects are well planned and funded in advance of their requirement.
8. Contribute to ongoing risk management effort and escalate risks when identified and provide appropriate mitigation pathways when possible.
9. Lead on the management and improvement of HFEAs IT Service Management (ITSM) tool to ensure service operations are managed well e.g. CMDB, Asset Management, Change Management and Joiners/Leavers.
10. Contribute to the development of business continuity and disaster recovery plans for IT service operations, ensuring HFEA can navigate and respond to business continuity events.
11. Coordinate with external auditors periodically and evaluate and commit to audit recommendations where appropriate and feasible.
12. Contribute towards the development of HFEAs IT policies so they are kept relevant and fit for purpose.
Person Specification
Experience
- Significant (more than five years) experience in IT operations or related technical role
- Significant experience developing a high performing engineering and infrastructure team
- Significant experience in digital transformation, cloud adoption and embedding cloud platforms into business operations
- Deep knowledge of Azure, M365, identify and access management, networking, compute/storage, backup/DR, monitoring and automation
- Experience managing a small team
- Experience managing an Azure service retirement and replacing with alternative
- Experience of PowerShell scripting, and Azure Cloud Shell
- Strong, hands-on experience of Microsoft Intune
- Strong, hands-on experience with domain management including Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Radius and RBAC
- Experience of applying ITIL framework
- Good working experience to cyber security principles and standards such as NCSC and Cyber Assessment Framework, or equivalent.
- Experience of VMWare ESXi virtual machine hosting
- Experience of Synology NAS storage
- Experience with Mimecast
- Experience with Sophos Antivirus
- Experience with NIST Cyber Security Framework
- Microsoft SQL server, infrastructure administration
- Experience working in healthcare
Knowledge & skills
- Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
- Advanced knowledge and experience of Azure Cloud
- Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)
- TIL / Service Management
- Security certifications (CISSP/CISM/CCSP)
Managing work
- Proven track record of working independently, with little supervision
- Track record of leading the management of IT infrastructure in an operational capacity
- Ability to work effectively with colleagues and suppliers with different areas of expertise, to deliver the best possible outcome
Qualifications
- Educated to degree level or equivalent significant experience in IT infrastructure
Disclosure and Barring Service Check
This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
Employer details
Employer name
Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority
Address
2nd Floor
2 Redman Place
London
E20 1JQ
United Kingdom
Employer's website
https://www.hfea.gov.uk/