Head Of Infrastructure

Head of Infrastructure – Whitbread – Dunstable, Full-Time and Permanent

Head of Infrastructure – Whitbread – Dunstable

Salary: £110k - £120K + £7K Car allowance + Bonus up to 40%

We’re Whitbread, home of Premier Inn, the UK’s largest hotel chain, as well as some of the nation’s favourite go-to restaurants, Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Bar + Block. At Whitbread we’re more than just #clicksandbricks. We know that having a strong technology infrastructure is crucial for our success and creating the hotels of the future. That’s why we’ve invested £130 million over the last 3 years in technology transformation to drive better cloud adoption with a cloud first strategy.

We’ve just concluded our biggest ever technology project, rolling out new property management system Opera across 900+ sites in the UK and Germany, allowing our technology teams to innovate faster and support our business growth, and we’re not stopping there. As Head of Infrastructure, you’ll be responsible for developing and implementing our Infrastructure strategy to meet the needs of a dynamic and fast-moving business that will service our 40,000 team members and digital customers.

Location: Hybrid Role based in Dunstable, Bedfordshire LU5 5XE (3 days minimum at our Whitbread Campus) with occasional travel to London

What you’ll do:

Reporting to the Head of Technology Operations, you’ll provide leadership and direction to our Infrastructure Technology teams, which include Core Infrastructure, End User Compute, Network, Datacentre and Cloud Functions through:

• Drive the development and execution of the infrastructure strategy aligned to our business goals, and transformation.
• Build a technology roadmap outline key initiatives, milestones and timeline for projects and investments.
• Ensure high availability, performance and reliability of critical infrastructure component through proactive monitoring, maintenance and trouble shooting.
• Develop proactive strategies to mitigate threats, assess potential risks to ensure business continuity.
• Manage the budget ensuring resource allocated are done so effectively in line with optimised costs.
• Build strong working relationships through new and existing suppliers; major vendors and service providers to ensure that services meet expectations.

What you’ll need:

• Previous experience leading Infrastructure teams in a Head of role or senior position, who can provide both technical and professional leadership in this discipline to deliver large complex infrastructure and connectivity strategies.
• A strong technical background and deep understanding of Cloud technologies Azure, AWS. Office 365 across all Infrastructure disciplines.
• Ability to develop, lead and inspire a high performing team across Networking, Cloud Engineering and EUC disciplines.
• You will be a strong leader with influencing skills who has experience of leading change programmes though large teams.
• A strategic and innovative thinker who is skilled at developing new approaches.
• An exceptional communicator who can articulate technical concepts to non- technical audiences with the interpersonal skills to build effective relationships across all levels both internally and externally.

Why you’ll love it here:

• Bonus: An annual Whitbread performance incentive worth up to 40% of base salary
• Car or Car Allowance up to £7,420
• Healthcare: Family BUPA Healthcare
• Up to 10% Matched Pension, 33 Days holiday and Company Share Save Scheme

Through collaboration, passion and hiring the smartest minds, our Technology team builds products and services that are used by 40,000 of us at Whitbread and millions of guests worldwide. Everything from an eCommerce website that handles £2 billion in transactions per year, applications that are scalable across our 1,200 hotel and restaurants, devices that enable our teams and guests to have a seamless experience, all whilst keeping data secure. Together we’re building the hotel of the future.

As a Force for Good, Whitbread is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where we believe everyone is unique and is a place where you can bring your authentic self to work each day. We are proud to have been awarded Top Employers Award for 13 consecutive years, received a Stonewall Gold Award for the 2nd year for our commitment to LGBTQ inclusion and work and for the 2nd year running we have been awarded as a Top 25 Employer in the Investing in Ethnicity Matrix as the only hospitality leading the way in terms of their inclusion.

We believe that everyone is unique and there should be no barriers to entry and no limits to ambition. We are committed to being an inclusive organisation that values diversity and welcomes your application whatever your background or situation.

Under-represented groups such as women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities & members of the LGBTQIA+ community (those who identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans and non-binary or those who use a different LGBTQIA+ term), are strongly encouraged to build a career with us. Speak to us about workplace adjustments, part-time and flexible working. Where possible we will support this.