Head of IT

As the Head of IT, reporting to the IT Director, you will help lead the strategy, performance, and evolution of the IT support function across a fast-paced, multi-site automotive group. Within the role your will be responsible for managing a high-performing support function, oversee critical infrastructure, and deliver strategic improvements that enhance up-time, user experience, and operational efficiency.

The Head of IT will have expertise in technology strategy, business continuity, cybersecurity, and enterprise-scale service delivery. The successful candidates will demonstrate results-driven leadership through successful project execution, budget oversight, and infrastructure modernisation.

Operationally you will be proficient in IT governance, structure support frameworks, and project management methodologies, with a strong focus on innovation, cloud transformation, data privacy compliance and be committed to delivering secure, scalable solutions aligned with long-term business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Working with the IT Director to help shape IT strategy to support business growth and operational efficiency.


• Provide guidance to the IT Director, CEO and board on technology risk and investment.


• Maintain IT roadmap including cloud and cybersecurity initiatives.


• Coordinate IT operations across multiple sites ensuring high availability.


• Manage escalation of major incidents and implement preventative measures.


• Oversee incident, problem, and change management, ensuring SLA adherence and consistent service quality across all dealerships and corporate sites.


• Lead continued migration to Microsoft Azure and support Microsoft 365 adoption.


• Oversee rollout of Windows 11 with minimal disruption.


• Strengthen cybersecurity posture through policy enforcement, vulnerability remediation, MFA adoption, and proactive risk management. Develop IT team capability, accountability, and performance.


• Act as senior escalation point for complex technical issues across networks, servers, cloud services, and end-user technologies.


• Collaborate with senior leadership and department heads to align IT services with operational needs and commercial priorities.


• Manage third-party vendors and contracts, ensuring value for money, service quality, and strategic alignment.


• Lead and develop the IT Support team, setting performance standards, coaching engineers, and embedding a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.


• Own the desktop engineering function, including endpoint lifecycle management, imaging, patching, hardware refresh, and application deployment.


• Manage disaster recovery and business continuity planning, including documentation, testing cycles, failover procedures, and ensuring readiness for critical events.


• Deliver IT projects end-to-end, from scoping and planning through to implementation and stakeholder communication—covering infrastructure upgrades, cloud adoption, security enhancements, and system rollouts.


• Drive standardisation and automation across support processes to reduce downtime and improve user experience.

Skills and Experience Required

• Demonstratable experience of supporting a multi-discipline estate across multiple sites


• Good/intermediate networking knowledge of both Data and Voice networks


• Active Directory user/groups setup and administration


• Azure hosting and Cloud based technologies


• Artificial Intelligence Implementation


• Helping to Shape IT strategy to support business growth and operational efficiency


• Develop IT team capability, accountability, and performance.


• Help to Strengthen cybersecurity posture, including endpoint protection and actively promote security best practice across the group.


• Business continuity planning


• Business Process Analysis


• Project leadership


• Results-driven leadership


• Budget oversight


• Endpoint security


• Disaster recovery planning


• Enterprise software implementation


• IT governance


• Technical innovation


• Business intelligence implementation


• Virtual reality technologies


• Data privacy compliance

Benefits

• Pension - Statutory Workplace Pension contributions


• Life Cover/Death in Service Benefit - 2 Times Salary


• Private Medical Insurance (PMI) with options for full family coverage - Child cover included up to the age of 21


• Car Allowance (If vehicle bought from business) or Salary Sacrifice lease scheme - £300


• EOT Bonus