Systems Administrator (Estates)

We are seeking to recruit a Systems Administrator who has experience with Computer Aided Facility Management (CAFM) software and other common estates and room bookings systems (e.g. BMS, EMS, space management, accommodation systems).

It's an exciting time to join the university as the Digital & Technology division is benefiting from a rapidly-rising awareness of, and focus on, the value of digital-led experiences, which corresponds with the level of investment in digital over the last few years.

Working as part of Digital and Technology, you will play an important role within an Estates Digital Services team as part of a product group that manages all aspects of system and service lifecycles from initial discovery to retirement. You will provide your technical skills and experience to help run the digital services which underpin crucial business services.

Day-to-day you will support, manage and maintain a suite of applications (Estates applications - CAFM in particular) that meet business requirements and operate at agreed service levels. You will proactively identify and investigate patterns and trends and work with suppliers and other University technical teams to resolve problems; you will determine appropriate resolutions, implement solutions and take preventative measures.

Key day to day duties and responsibilities:

• Lead on the investigation and resolution of incidents; monitoring and analysing tickets to ensure the delivery of a high-quality service across the suite of applications. Maintain good communication with users throughout and provide comprehensible resolution notes where needed.
• Ensure that all ticket, case and planning systems are updated regularly to reflect the current state of the service and to enable accurate reporting to senior management.
• Diagnose service delivery problems for designated services and initiate actions to understand and resolve root causes and maintain or improve levels of service.
• Lead on and ensure the correct implementation of standards (e.g. patching policy and upgrades) and procedures (e.g. ITIL Change/Incident/Request/Problem); identify issues and initiate remedial action.
• Deal with all levels of change requests; identifying and assessing risks; providing recommendations for mitigating these risks; and ensuring that agreed change management processes are followed and conduct post business service release reviews.
• Analyse current processes, identify opportunities for improvements and lead on delivering service improvements; engaging with colleagues and stakeholders.
• Take ownership of issues; proactively take action to understand and resolve root causes to maintain or improve levels of service.
• Responsible for understanding and documenting how the suite of applications are used within the university; working with key stakeholders to investigate and agree on changes to improve services; support training of new users.
• Input into and support testing of functional and non-functional requirements; provide authoritative advice and identify and implement improvements to testing functions; maintain comprehensive (full and regression) test sets for prioritised scenarios.
• Champion user needs; input into user stories supporting the prioritisation of requirements with a focus on ongoing operations.
• Work with the Senior Technical Operations Manager and input into the Head of Product and group management team on roadmaps ensuring that operational maintenance and improvements are highlighted and prioritised.
• Contribute expertise and dedication to continuous learning about the organisation, the business services we support and the applications that we manage.

Alongside excellent communication skills, ability to work collaboratively within a team across different professional groups and having strong, proactive problem-solving and planning capabilities, you will also have the following experience:

• Proven experience of delivering application support, configuration and administration to agreed service levels within a complex multi-layered organisation; providing suggestions for and delivering improvements and efficiencies.
• Hands-on experience of estates systems e.g. CAFM, BMS, EMS, Space Management, Room Booking software.
• Strong evidence of troubleshooting and resolving technical issues/problems within an operational environment.
• High degree of adaptability; with demonstrable evidence of being able to manage the daily challenges of delivering in an ever-changing technical landscape.
• Proven experience of working as system administrator on Windows or Linux operating systems; including working with IIS or Apache & Tomcat technologies.
• Strong evidence of working with applications across a variety of architectures/platforms, including on-premise and cloud hosted/SaaS.
• Knowledge and experience of working with different databases and cloud storage services.
• Demonstrable experience of working within an IT service management framework; specifically incident, request, problem and change management.
• Experience of building and maintaining strong working relationships across and outside the organisation.
• Good understanding of current and emerging technologies and standards in the industry and impact on operations.

If you have experience working in a Higher Education environment then this is advantageous but not essential.

University of the Arts London (UAL) offers an extensive range of courses in art, design, fashion, communication and performing arts. We are a collegiate University spread across London with six Colleges, four Institutes and five Research Centres. UAL also has two subsidiary companies, delivering specialist activities - UAL Short Courses Ltd, and UAL Arts Temps Ltd.

We're made up of all types of people, coming together in London, the world's creative capital. We are designers, artists, performers, thinkers, researchers and makers. Our students, staff and graduates form a global network of creatives, entrepreneurs and leaders. Together, our ideas change the world. Because the world needs creativity.

We are ranked highly across the board. We are ranked first for specialist art and design, second in the world for Art and Design in the 2024 QS World University Rankings (for the sixth year in a row), ranked fifth in sustainability and two of our colleges were rated in the top three fashion schools in the world.