Director of IT Operations & Infrastructure

At Oxford Instruments, we enable the world’s leading industrial companies and scientific research communities to image, analyse and manipulate materials down to the atomic and molecular level. With a sixty-year history, and fourteen Queen’s Awards for Enterprise, our world-class products and technologies are helping our customers to address the greatest challenges of the 21st century.

Oxford Instruments is seeking an experienced IT Operations & Infrastructure Director to lead our global infrastructure strategy and service delivery. You will ensure our applications, networks, data, and core systems remain secure, robust, and aligned with the growth ambitions of the business.

About the Role

You will shape and deliver the global IT Operations and Infrastructure roadmap, manage a distributed team of around 20 IT professionals, and oversee multiple third‑party service providers. With a strong customer focus, you will work closely with business leaders to understand requirements and ensure our infrastructure and services consistently meet expectations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead global strategy and operations across infrastructure, applications, and service delivery.
• Build strong relationships with business units to align IT services to future needs.
• Develop and maintain the infrastructure technology roadmap.
• Govern IT processes including incident, change, project and asset management.
• Manage contracts and budgets of c. £3m, including vendor negotiations.
• Ensure security, compliance, and alignment with frameworks such as NIS2, Cyber Essentials+, and ISO 27001.
• Lead technical projects, ensuring solutions are delivered effectively and securely.
• Develop and mentor a geographically dispersed team.

This Role Is Ideal If You…

• Have experience leading Service Delivery and Infrastructure teams in complex, global environments.
• Have partnered with third‑party vendors to deliver modern technology solutions.
• Understand governance frameworks and have achieved compliance in regulated settings.
• Can balance strategic thinking with hands‑on delivery.
• Can drive collaboration across regions and time zones.

Person Specification

• 5+ years in a distributed manufacturing environment.
• Experience managing budgets >£3m and teams of 20+ across multiple geographies.
• Knowledge of ITIL, COBIT, or similar frameworks.
• Proven delivery of ISO27001 programmes.
• Strong technical experience in:
• Microsoft 365 & Azure Hybrid
• Firewalls, Antivirus, BitLocker, SIEM
• MFA
• Zero Trust architectures

At Oxford Instruments, we are proud of the environment that we have created. We hope that by joining us, you will discover why people stay with our business for so long and have such a significant impact on our globally growing success story.

This role is a hybrid role with the main location being High Wycombe. We work from 8:00 am until 4:30 pm Monday to Thursday and finish at 1:00 pm on Fridays, allowing you to start your weekend early.

Other Benefits:

• 25 days holiday + bank holidays
• Private health care
• Generous pension
• Car scheme
• Cycle to work
• Income protection
• Employee Discounts
• Life assurance

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All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or disability.

Note to recruitment agencies: Oxford Instruments operates a Preferred Supplier List, and we do not accept unsolicited agency CVs. Please do not forward candidate details in response to this advert, or to any Oxford Instruments employees or other company locations. Oxford Instruments is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited CVs.