Director, UK Digital Operations
GE Aerospace · Cheltenham
Job Description Summary
We are seeking a Director, UK Digital Operations to lead the UK Highly Regulated infrastructure environment, with end-to-end responsibility for hosting, network infrastructure, endpoint technologies, Active Directory, identity management, service delivery, and strategic transformation. This leader will drive operational excellence, resilience, compliance, and customer-focused performance across regulated UK sites, while shaping a multi-year roadmap for infrastructure modernization, cloud adoption, AI-enabled operations, and technical debt reduction.The ideal candidate will bring significant experience leading enterprise hosting and networking teams in complex, regulated environments, along with strong strategic leadership, vendor and budget management, and a track record of building high-performing teams, driving operational improvements, and balancing business priorities with security, compliance, and service excellence.
Job Description
Roles and Responsibilities
Team and culture
- Lead UK Infrastructure for the UK Highly Regulated environment, specifically hosting infrastructure & network including Active Directory and UK Identity management delivery
- Establish and foster a work culture at all levels that is positive, collaborative, respectful, innovative, dynamic, with high integrity, and capable of driving positive change over sustained periods.
- Provide strategic oversight while driving team optimization, individual growth, succession planning, and retention, building capability in AI, automation, and modern infrastructure practices.
Infrastructure, network, and hosting
- Own the availability, performance, and lifecycle of site infrastructure, including compute, storage, hosting, and network connectivity across UK Highly Regulated sites.
- Develop and execute a multi-year infrastructure roadmap covering hosting and cloud strategy, network modernization, capacity and refresh planning, and reduction of technical debt and end-of-life estate, balancing global DT standards against legitimate local site needs to support UK regulatory requirements.
- Partner with Data Center 3rd party service providers to ensure optimal uptime supporting Business applications and IT services.
- Drive strategically aligned UK Cloud adoption as applicable, supporting compliance criteria and global standards, policies and frameworks as possible.
Endpoint management and end user experience
- Own the full endpoint lifecycle: procurement, provisioning and imaging, configuration and patch compliance, mobile device management, refresh, and secure disposal.
- Maintain accurate IT asset inventory and software license compliance across both regions.
AI and digital innovation
- Lead adoption of AI capabilities across the sites, identifying and delivering high-value use cases for engineering, manufacturing, and back-office teams whilst adhering to compliance requirements for the region.
- Apply AI and automation within the operations function to improve monitoring, incident prediction, and diagnostics, proactively resolving IT issues and improving processes through data and automation rather than added headcount.
- Establish and enforce AI usage guardrails appropriate to a highly regulated environment, ensuring data classification, residency, and export control requirements are respected in all AI tooling and data flows.
Security, compliance, and resilience
- Drive adherence to IT compliance standards (SOX, ISO, CMMC, Cyber Essentials, DCC, NIST) by minimizing exception processes and creating streamlined or automated solutions for gaps in the UK highly regulated environment.
- Own disaster recovery and business continuity for infrastructure, including documented recovery objectives and regular, evidenced restore and failover testing.
- Maintain accurate IT asset inventory across using Aero ServiceNow CMDB.
- Own disaster recovery and business continuity for infrastructure.
Service management and delivery
- Own service management for Infrastructure including SLA performance, change and configuration management, and major incident (P1, P2) command and Business communications.
- Define proactive operational monitoring system (KPIs, reporting, etc.) to advance from reactive to proactively managing operations.
- Lead cross-discipline teams to establish an integrated plan to deliver IT project commitments, tracking program status and metrics to ensure milestones and internal and external delivery commitments are met.
- Complete root cause analysis of defects and implement controls to mitigate repetitive issues, maintaining ongoing communication to leadership on progress, risks, and mitigation plans.
Financial and vendor management
- Own the operating and capital budget for the region, driving cost optimization and clear return on technology investment.
- Own vendor and managed service provider relationships, including contract negotiation, renewals, SLA governance, and performance management.
- Manage client and vendor problem resolution and escalation.
Qualifications/Requirements
• Bachelor's degree in computer science or a STEM field, or relevant industry experience.
• Extensive experience in enterprise-grade hosting architecture, specifically Hosting and Networking.
• Demonstrated experience leading a technical team in a regulated environment.
Desired Characteristics
• Strong business analysis and technical problem-solving skills.
• Knowledge of business and financial principles and practices.
• Demonstrated ability to manage team/infrastructure operations across the infrastructure ecosystem and make trade-offs based on key business priorities.
• Demonstrated experience leading and influencing across a complex, regulated organisations and environments.
• Ability to decompose problems and make decisions when problems or solutions are not 100% defined.
• Skilled in breaking down problems, documenting problem statements and estimating efforts.
• Experience motivating and leading a technical team to common goals and customer outcomes.
• Experience managing enterprise level partner and supplier delivery models.
• Customer first mindset, able to prioritize customer outcomes above technology.
Flexible Working
GE supports and encourages flexible working arrangements, where possible, and recognises the benefits to employees of having a positive work-life balance.
Total Reward
At GE Aerospace we understand the importance of Total Reward. Our flexible benefits plan, called FlexChoice, gives you freedom, choice and flexibility in the way you receive your benefits, as well as giving you the opportunity to make savings where possible.
As a new joiner to GE we are pleased to be able to offer you the following as default in your benefit fund, which you then can tailor to meet your individual needs;
- Pension
- Car Allowance
- Bonus
- Life Assurance
- Group income protection
- Private medical cover
Security Clearance
Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) clearance is required and must be maintained for this role. Please note that in the event that BPSS clearance cannot be obtained, you may not be eligible for the role and/or any offer of employment may be withdrawn on grounds of national security. Please see the link below for further details regarding the requirements for BPSS clearance: BPSS
Right to Work
Applications from job seekers who require sponsorship to work in the UK are welcome and will be considered alongside all other applications. However, under the applicable UK immigration rules as may be in place from time to time, it may be that candidates who do not currently have the right to work in the UK may not be appointed to a post if a suitably qualified, experienced and skilled candidate who does not require sponsorship is available to take up the post. For further information please visit the UK Visas and Immigration website.
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Additional Information
Relocation Assistance Provided: No