Softwire
Head of Infrastructure, Security & Service Desk Overview
| Company Name | Softwire |
| Job Role | Head of Infrastructure, Security & Service Desk |
| Qualifications | Not Specified |
| Category | General Jobs |
| Job Type | Full Time |
| Location | London |
This role sits within Softwireâs support function and carries overall responsibility for infrastructure, security, and the service desk. You will be backed by a Senior Internal Infrastructure Engineer plus a wider group of Service Desk and Infrastructure Engineers, and you will be accountable for both people leadership and the technical health of the internal environment.
What you will do
You will lead a technical team, set direction, and make sure work is delivered in a way that is organised, collaborative, and aligned to business priorities. A major part of the role is managing the first-line support service desk so that colleagues receive fast, reliable help and issues are handled properly from logging through to resolution.
You will also own a broad set of infrastructure and security responsibilities across endpoints, identity, networks, patching, hardening, resilience, monitoring, incident response, and compliance. The role combines hands-on technical oversight with leadership, planning, and stakeholder communication.
Team leadership and people management
- Lead, support, and develop the engineering team, encouraging a culture where people are trusted, accountable, and able to work well together.
- Plan the teamâs workload and assign tasks based on urgency, technical difficulty, and each personâs growth needs.
- Coach team members through regular one-to-ones, constructive feedback, and clear objectives that support both performance and career development.
- Act as the senior escalation point for the team and provide technical guidance when complex issues arise.
- Manage resourcing and capacity so the team can balance project delivery with ongoing operational support.
- Communicate priorities and progress clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders across the organisation.
- Build and maintain documentation, standards, and operating practices that help the team work consistently and efficiently.
Service desk and end-user support
- Run the first-line support function, ensuring tickets and incidents are logged, triaged, prioritised, and resolved in line with agreed service levels.
- Continuously improve the support experience for employees using the service desk.
- Oversee onboarding for new starters, including account creation, device setup, and access provisioning so they can be productive immediately.
- Manage offboarding for leavers, making sure access is removed quickly, devices are recovered and securely wiped, and accounts are decommissioned in partnership with HR and identity/access processes.
- Maintain end-user guides, self-service materials, and a knowledge base to reduce repeat tickets and improve consistency of support.
Infrastructure and security ownership
- Manage endpoint security across corporate devices, including antivirus, EDR, encryption, and mobile device management, and respond promptly to threats.
- Own identity and access management for internal systems, including joiner/mover/leaver processes, role-based access, privileged access, and regular access reviews.
- Design, implement, and maintain network security controls such as firewalls, segmentation, VPN, and intrusion detection/prevention.
- Run patching and vulnerability management across systems, infrastructure, and devices, ensuring issues are remediated within risk-based timeframes.
- Identify, assess, prioritise, and track vulnerabilities through scanning and remediation to closure.
- Ensure servers, cloud infrastructure, and network devices are securely configured and hardened to recognised standards such as CIS Benchmarks.
- Keep hosted applications protected through timely patching, least-privilege access, and controls that help detect and respond to malicious activity.
- Oversee backup processes so backups are completed, tested, recoverable, and retained appropriately.
- Maintain and test disaster recovery documentation and runbooks, ensuring recovery objectives are clear and achievable.
- Operate logging and monitoring so security events are captured, alerted on, and investigated quickly.
- Lead the technical response to internal security incidents, including containment, eradication, recovery, root cause analysis, and follow-up corrective actions.
- Ensure internal systems and infrastructure comply with company security policies, standards, and relevant regulatory requirements.
- Report on the status of controls, vulnerabilities, and incidents to the CISO and escalate material risks when necessary.
- Support external audits, including ISO 27001 and client audits, where internal infrastructure is in scope.
- Own the Cyber Essentials Plus process, coordinating the annual self-assessment and the verified external audit.
Experience and qualifications
To be successful, you should bring proven experience leading a technical team, including workload allocation, mentoring, and performance development. You should also have experience operating a service desk or first-line support function, with responsibility for SLA management, ticket triage, and user onboarding and offboarding.
The role requires strong hands-on experience across infrastructure and security disciplines, including endpoints, IAM, networking, patching, hardening, backup and disaster recovery, monitoring, and incident response. You should be comfortable working with both cloud infrastructure and on-premises systems.
You will need a working understanding of recognised security frameworks and standards such as ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus, plus experience coordinating security incident response end to end. Strong communication skills are essential, particularly the ability to explain technical risk clearly to both technical teams and senior leaders. You should also be able to make sound business-aware decisions about risk prioritisation and remediation.
Desirable experience includes relevant certifications such as CISSP, CISM, or cloud/security platform qualifications, along with scripting or automation skills that can improve operational efficiency.
Package and benefits
Softwire uses transparent pay scales and a profit share scheme linked to role level and company performance. The base salary for this position is £92,100 to £120,600, depending on experience. In addition, you can expect average profit share of around £15,000 to £25,250, again depending on experience and company performance.
- Additional pension contribution of 5% of salary
- 25 days of annual leave, with the option to buy 10 more days and sell 5
- 3.5 extra days off for company-wide morale activities
- AIG income protection
- Travel card loan scheme
- Zero-emission car scheme
- Cycle to work scheme
- Enhanced maternity and paternity pay
- Paid time off for charitable activities
- Sabbatical available on request
- Payroll giving for charity donations
- Headspace Plus access
- Free annual eye test
- Long-service awards
Working pattern
The role offers flexible working and is suitable for someone who wants to work four days per week. It is a hybrid position, with the expectation that you can work from home at least two days each week.
About the company
Softwire is a UK technology and strategy consultancy working with organisations in enterprise, government, and other sectors to deliver ambitious change at scale. Its work spans AI transformation, data platforms, systems engineering, and advanced customer experience and design.
The company describes itself as a place built for smart, passionate technologists who want to make an impact. It emphasises a culture of doing work properly, finding fulfilment and enjoyment in work, treating kindness as important for both employees and clients, and relying on trust rather than bureaucracy.
Softwire says it has been voted the number one company to work for in the UK at the Best Company awards and notes that its people often go on to roles at organisations such as Google, DeepMind, start-up founder positions, algorithmic trading, and AI research.
How to apply
Applications can be submitted through the Apply Now link on the job page.
Degree Requirement: Not Specified
Visa Sponsorship Promising
To apply for this job please visit www.softwire.com.
