Courts Service External Head of ICT Infrastructure (Hybrid)-Assistant Principal Officer
Courts Service External Head of ICT Infrastructure (Hybrid)\-Assistant Principal Officer
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Region
Dublin
Location(s)
Dublin
Business Unit(s)
Information Communication Technology
Job Description
THE ROLE
The Head of ICT Infrastructure reports to the Head of ICT Operations and is responsible for leading the teams that design, operate, maintain and develop the Courts Service’s core systems and network infrastructure.
This is a senior technical and operational leadership role within ICT Operations. The Head of ICT Infrastructure will ensure that infrastructure services are secure, resilient, well governed and capable of supporting both the day\-to\-day operation of the courts and the organisation’s wider modernisation programme. The role will work closely with Cyber Security Operations, Service Delivery, Courtroom Technology, the Digital and Data Units, enterprise and cloud architecture, and external service providers.
The role will be responsible for:
- Leadership and management of the infrastructure function, including the System Architect, Network Architect, systems administration teams, network administration teams and other technical resources assigned to infrastructure delivery.
- Operational ownership of core infrastructure services, ensuring that availability, performance, capacity, security, supportability and recoverability are actively managed.
- Infrastructure strategy and planning, translating organisational priorities, business requirements and architectural direction into clear technical roadmaps, investment proposals and delivery plans.
- Leading infrastructure programmes and projects, applying appropriate project\-management disciplines and governance to establish clear scope, delivery plans, resources, milestones, dependencies, risks, budgets and accountabilities, and to drive delivery throughout the project lifecycle.
- Technical governance and assurance, ensuring that infrastructure designs are secure, resilient, scalable, supportable and aligned with agreed enterprise, security and cloud architecture.
- Maintaining strong operational discipline, including effective monitoring, alerting, patching, vulnerability remediation, backup and restoration, configuration management, privileged access, certificate management, documentation and lifecycle planning.
- Leading the response to major incidents and complex technical problems, ensuring effective coordination, timely escalation, clear communication, root\-cause analysis and completion of corrective actions.
- Managing infrastructure change and service transition, ensuring that solutions delivered through projects and operational change are properly designed, tested, approved, documented and transitioned into support, with effective implementation and rollback arrangements.
- Strengthening disaster recovery and operational resilience, including maintaining recovery procedures, technical runbooks and dependencies, and overseeing regular backup restoration, failover and recovery exercises.
- Developing and sustaining organisational capability through workforce and succession planning, knowledge transfer, cross\-skilling and performance management, while ensuring that specialist external resources supplement rather than replace internal ownership, accountability and retained knowledge
- Working in partnership with Cyber Security Operations to implement security controls, hardening standards, network segmentation, identity controls and remediation plans across the infrastructure estate.
- Managing infrastructure budgets, suppliers and contracts, ensuring that expenditure is controlled, supplier performance is actively managed, and investment decisions are supported by clear evidence of service need and risk.
Critically, the role requires the ability to move beyond reactive problem solving and establish the planning, governance and operational disciplines needed to manage a complex technology estate effectively. The successful candidate will be expected to identify emerging risks, address technical debt, set clear standards, assign ownership and ensure that agreed actions are followed through to completion.
The successful candidate will be an experienced people leader who can set direction while supporting and developing technical specialists. They will communicate complex technical matters clearly to non\-technical audiences and provide senior management with concise advice on service impact, operational risk, investment requirements and available options.
They will work closely with the Head of ICT Operations and other ICT leaders to ensure that infrastructure services support the organisation’s strategic priorities, that dependencies across technology functions are effectively managed, and that the Courts Service maintains a secure, resilient and sustainable foundation for its services.
Essential Requirements:
Qualifications
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- A relevant third\-level qualification in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline, OR an equivalent combination of recognised professional qualifications and relevant experience.
- Relevant industry qualifications in infrastructure, networking, cloud services, cybersecurity, architecture or IT service management would be advantageous.
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Applicants should have at least 5 years' relevant and recent experience for this role. This experience should include:
- Proven experience leading and developing multidisciplinary infrastructure or technology teams in a complex enterprise environment.
- Experience managing highly available infrastructure services across multiple locations and technical domains, including networks, servers, virtualisation, storage, backup and recovery, identity, endpoint management and hybrid cloud services.
- Strong technical understanding of Microsoft enterprise technologies, including Windows Server, Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft 365 and related identity and endpoint services.
- Demonstrated experience in infrastructure strategy, architecture, capacity planning, technology lifecycle management, and addressing technical debt and obsolescence.
- Experience leading major incident response and complex problem resolution using effective monitoring, change control and IT service\-management practices.
- Experience planning, implementing and testing backup, disaster\-recovery and operational\-resilience arrangements.
- Experience delivering significant infrastructure projects and service changes, and managing contractors, suppliers, procurements, contracts, budgets and value for money.
- Experience implementing infrastructure security controls and working with cybersecurity specialists, combined with strong analytical, decision\-making and stakeholder\-communication skills, including explaining complex technical matters to senior and non\-technical audiences
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The following skills and experience are desirable:
- Experience with a selection of technologies used within the Courts Service estate, including Microsoft Hyper\-V, Citrix, Veeam, SAN platforms, SolarWinds, Lakeside SysTrack, ManageEngine ADManager Plus, Microsoft Intune and Azure hybrid services.
- Experience with enterprise networking technologies including Juniper switching, Fortinet FortiGate, Citrix NetScaler, Aruba wireless, Aruba ClearPass, 802\.1X, VXLAN and EVPN.
- Experience working in the Civil or Public Service, the justice sector, a regulated organisation or another operationally critical environment.
- Experience preparing technical strategies, business cases, governance reports and presentations for senior leadership.
Application should be made by logging into the advertisement link.
The closing date is 12 noon on 21 October 2026\. Applications received after the closing date and time will not be accepted.
Candidates who do not hold or do not demonstrate the skills and experience will not be called for interview.
The admission of a person to a competition, or invitation to attend an interview, is not to be taken as implying the Courts Service is satisfied such a person fulfils the requirements of the competition or is not disqualified by law from holding the position and does not carry a guarantee that your application will receive further consideration.
It is important, therefore, for candidates to note that the onus is on them to ensure that they meet the eligibility requirements for the competition before attending for interview. If a candidate does not meet these essential entry requirements but nevertheless attends for interview, that candidate will be putting him or herself to unnecessary expense. It is important to note the onus is on applicants to ensure the eligibility requirements for the competition are met before attending for interview.
*The Courts Service accepts no responsibility for communication not accessed or received by an applicant.*
Job Description
Job Description Irish
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