Group Cloud Engineer (Azure)

Full Job Description

Group Cloud Engineer (Azure)

Location: Hybrid – Manchester office 2 days per week / home working

Salary: £60,000–£70,000 depending on experience

Contract: Permanent | Full Time

UK applicants only | No sponsorship available

Build something from the ground up

Outcomes First Group is at an exciting stage of its cloud journey, and we're looking for an experienced Azure Cloud Engineer to help us build what comes next.

We've established our initial Azure landing zone – now we need someone who can take that foundation and help build, automate and secure a scalable cloud environment for a growing organisation.

This is a genuine build role, rather than simply maintaining an established Azure estate. You'll have the opportunity to influence how our cloud environment develops, establish engineering standards and play a key role in major technology projects including our migration to Microsoft Fabric, wider cloud migration and future AI roadmap.

What you'll be doing

You'll work within our Group Infrastructure Team to:

• Build and develop our Azure estate, including landing zones, subscriptions, networking, identity, security and governance.
• Build infrastructure through Bicep or Terraform, creating reusable Infrastructure as Code modules and templates.
• Develop CI/CD pipelines and automate cloud deployment and configuration using PowerShell and Azure CLI.
• Support the cloud engineering foundations for our Microsoft Fabric/Data Warehouse migration.
• Migrate remaining on-premises workloads and services into Azure.
• Design and manage Azure networking, including VNets, private endpoints, VPN/ExpressRoute and firewalls.
• Develop our approach to monitoring, resilience, disaster recovery, security and cloud cost optimisation.
• Work closely with data, BI, security and infrastructure teams to build a secure, scalable and well-governed platform.
• Help establish the technical standards and documentation that will underpin OFG's future cloud environment.

What we're looking for

We're looking for someone with strong hands-on Azure engineering experience who enjoys building and improving environments rather than simply supporting what's already there.

You'll ideally bring:

• Strong hands-on Microsoft Azure experience across IaaS and PaaS.
• Proven Infrastructure as Code experience using Bicep, ARM or Terraform.
• Experience with Azure landing zones, governance, policy and tenant-level foundations.
• Git, source control and CI/CD experience.
• Strong PowerShell and Azure CLI skills.
• Azure networking and Entra ID experience.
• Experience migrating on-premises workloads into Azure.
• Knowledge of Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, cloud security and cost management.
• Experience working in an evolving cloud environment where you can help establish standards and ways of working.

Experience with Microsoft Fabric, Data Factory, Power BI, FinOps, AKS, Policy as Code or Azure AI/Copilot services would be an advantage.

Why join Outcomes First Group?

This is an opportunity to have genuine influence over the development of our cloud estate at an important point in our technology journey.

Outcomes First Group is the UK's largest independent provider of high-quality special needs education, operating across England, Scotland and Wales. You'll join a growing organisation where technology plays an increasingly important role in supporting our services and future growth.

You'll also receive a comprehensive benefits package including pension, Life Assurance, wellbeing support, enhanced family leave and access to flexible benefits including Cycle to Work and Electric Car schemes.

Ready to help build our Azure future? We'd love to hear from you.

Outcomes First Group is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. All applicants will be subject to appropriate safeguarding and pre-employment checks.