Job Title: Senior IT System Specialist / Architect
Agency: Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Location: Chester, United Kingdom
Salary/Rate: 49,387 to 56,515 £ / Year

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Job summary

Working full-time: 37.5 hours per week

This is an exciting and pivotal time to join the Trust as we transform and modernise our digital infrastructure, shaping a resilient, secure, and scalable architecture that underpins safe and effective patient care.

We are seeking a highly motivated, forward-thinking Senior IT Specialist / Architect to join our Senior Infrastructure team. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced technical professional to play a leading role in designing, evolving, and safeguarding the Trust’s core infrastructure estate.

Working at both a strategic and operational level, you will influence the future direction of our digital architecture while ensuring high availability, performance, and security of critical systems. You will collaborate across Digital, clinical, and partner teams to deliver innovative solutions that support the Trust’s ambition for digital transformation, enabling improved outcomes for patients and staff alike.

Main duties of the job

You will bring deep technical expertise across enterprise infrastructure technologies, including Active Directory, DNS/DHCP, identity and access management, certificate services, endpoint and server security (e.g. GPO and anti-malware), virtualisation platforms, storage solutions, and enterprise backup and recovery capabilities.

Acting as a senior technical authority, you will lead the design, optimisation, and ongoing management of the Trust’s core infrastructure estate, ensuring systems are secure, resilient, and scalable to meet both current operational demands and future digital ambitions.

You will play a key role in delivering complex infrastructure projects to challenging timescales, balancing operational priorities with governance, risk, and compliance requirements. Working closely with internal stakeholders and external partners, you will ensure solutions are aligned to organisational standards and best practice.

In addition, you will lead and develop a high-performing, multi-skilled team, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, accountability, and technical excellence. You will be responsible for maintaining high availability of critical services, driving proactive infrastructure improvements, and ensuring the Trust’s digital platforms continue to support safe, effective, and innovative patient care.

Person Specification

Knowledge & Experience

Essential

• Enterprise Server Architecture: Expert-level proficiency and direct involvement across critical identity, network, and infrastructure protocols, including Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, and enterprise PKI/Certificate Services with proven expertise in the end-to-end design, deployment, and support of scalable cloud and hybrid infrastructure architectures.
• Security & Endpoint Governance: Specialised capability in deploying robust security infrastructure, incorporating advanced Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and enterprise-grade anti-virus (AV) mechanisms.
• Data Protection & Resilience: Mastery of enterprise-class backup and restore methodologies, data tiering strategies, and business continuity applications.
• Storage & Virtualisation Engineering: Advanced hands-on expertise in Storage Area Network (SAN) topologies and hypervisor virtualisation environments (e.g., VMware/Hyper-V/Nutanix).
• Service & Operational Excellence: Deep technical comprehension of modern Service Delivery models (e.g., ITIL frameworks) and complex, large-scale infrastructure systems.
• Project Delivery Lifecycle: Proven record of guiding major IT infrastructure projects through the end-to-end project management lifecycle, from business case conception to post-implementation review.
• Cybersecurity Governance & Compliance: Deep operational understanding of Secure-by-Design architectural principles, with a proven track record of enforcing strict adherence to the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) standards across all infrastructure deployments.
• Complex Problem Diagnostics & Resolution: Extensive experience investigating and analysing highly complex, multi-tiered technical failures to formulate, recommend, and execute highly effective infrastructure solutions.

Desirable

• Leadership Experience: Line management experience, dedicated to driving team development through active mentorship and cross-functional knowledge sharing.
• Cyber Threat Landscape Expertise: Deep operational comprehension of evolving information security threats, vulnerabilities, and the engineering of advanced technical countermeasures.
• Regulatory & Statutory Framework Governance: Experience in delivering and supporting Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) and Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) compliance, including preparing for audits, contributing to evidence submissions, and supporting the remediation of identified findings.

Qualifications

Essential

• Academic & Professional Foundations: Educated to degree level in a Digital / IT discipline, or possesses equivalent demonstrable professional experience
• Technical Certification: Microsoft Certified including Windows Server Hybrid Administrator Associate, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or equivalent legacy enterprise certifications (e.g., MCSE).
• Industry Expertise: Substantial and extensive experience operating at a senior tier within complex enterprise infrastructure environments.

Skills & Abilities

Essential

• Enterprise Architecture Engineering: Advanced mastery in the consultation, design, engineering, and deployment of complex Storage Area Networks (SANs), virtualisation platforms, and core Microsoft enterprise ecosystems, backed by substantial practical application.
• Operational Flexibility: Commitment to supporting a flexible operational schedule and actively participating in a mandatory out-of-hours on-call rotation framework
• Resilient Delivery: High personal motivation, a proactive problem-solving mindset, and a proven capability to deliver high-quality outcomes under pressure within strict timelines.
• Strategic Advisory & Negotiation: Ability to serve as a senior IT service delivery expert for the Trust, assessing highly complex, conflicting situations and utilising advanced negotiation and communication skills to achieve resolution
• Complex Information Synthesis: Proven capacity to analyse intricate technical policies, regulatory documents, and business cases, translating complex data into clear, actionable insights for stakeholders at all organisational levels.
• Continuous Professional Development: Demonstrable commitment to ongoing professional development and remaining current with emerging enterprise technologies.

Desirable

• Clinical Systems Engineering: Expert-level capability in managing, optimising, and supporting complex, multi-stranded clinical IT systems and interconnected healthcare applications.

Closing Date: 31 August 2026

How to Apply;

Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online for this job

Disclaimer

Author: Simon RobertEasyInfoBlog is a multi-author blog. We have experts and professionals in various fields who share their ideas and expert knowledge to help you with your daily information needs. Thanks for reading!