UK Ministry of Defence
Defence Business Services (DBS) - DDaT Database Administrator
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Norcross - Tomlinson House, FY5 3WP, Abbey Wood North, Stoke Gifford, Bristol, South West, BS34 8QW.
Job Summary
Are you a dedicated person who is passionate about making a difference?
Would you like to work for the Ministry of Defence?
Defence Business Services (DBS) is one of the largest shared service organisations in Europe that provides a wide range of corporate services, to over 1.2 million end users, including serving and past military and families, as well as MoD civil servants and industry. DBS delivers large scale administration and smaller specialist services to enable the wider MOD to focus on its core aims, maintaining the UK’s Defence and Security. Services include Human Resources, Pay, Veterans, Finance and Procurement.
Our Vision
To support UK defence customers with outstanding service every time.
Our Mission
Together we will proudly support Defence, continuously improving and delivering flexible, timely, sustainable and value for money services that underpin the whole force and enhance operational capability.
DBS is committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues. We are building an inclusive culture and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society.
We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us through opportunities to develop your skills and experience. We also offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career accessible to you and offer a Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%. Where your role permits, we support a blended working approach alternatively known as hybrid working.
Where business needs allow, some roles may be suitable for a combination of office and home-based working. This is a non-contractual arrangement where all office-based employees will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of their working time in office, subject to capacity and any required workplace adjustments. Requirements to attend other locations for official business, or work in another MOD office, will also count towards this level of attendance. Applicants can request further information regarding how this may work in their team from the Vacancy Holder (see advert for contact details). Defence Business Services cannot respond to any questions about working arrangements.
DBS has recently undertaken a review of its operational locations in the North West, and have consolidated all activities in Norcross, Blackpool. A further move, to the new Government Hub at Talbot Gateway in Blackpool, is scheduled to take place in 2027.
Come and join the DBS community today!
Job Description
A Senior Infrastructure Engineer builds, administers, supports and maintains solutions as directed and according to departmental policy.
At This Role Level, You Will:
- Ensure services are integrated, delivered and operated as required.
- Work with and support third parties in providing infrastructure services.
- Work with technical architects to translate architectural designs into operations.
- Provide input into overall management - workforce, budget, technology roadmaps, projects and tasks.
- Lead and direct infrastructure specialist teams in building, managing, supporting and maintaining solutions according to departmental policy.
Specifically, As Senior Infrastructure Engineer (SEO) - You Will:
- Support, patch and administer Oracle databases, E Business Suite applications and related Oracle technologies including Dataguard, RMAN and Oracle Fusion Middleware.
- Support and administration to SQL server Databases.
- Support includes production, testing, disaster recovery and development databases and application services.
- Maintain the performance and availability of production services ensuring we meet prescribed Service Levels and Key Performance Indicators.
- Provide Database Administration support to projects.
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Key Responsibilities:
- Provide hands-on day to day technical support for DBS DIT Infrastructure within the bounds of the Service Level Agreements.
- Ensure service availability of all "live" development & DR environments as dictated by SLA and ensure these environments are meeting the expectations of end users, record and log all infrastructure issues and ensure associated actions taken to resolve the issue are also documented using the IT helpdesk ticketing system.
- Manage the development, testing and implementation of Oracle database and E Business Suite patches and updates on a regular recurring cycle, ensuring that critical patches are applied to our systems in a timely manner whilst minimising downtime and risk of disruption to live service.
- Assist other Technical Support team members to ensure that normal service is restored as quickly as possible in the event of an incident, to minimize any disruption to the business.
- Where a forthcoming issue in the infrastructure environment can be pre-empted, identify and take proactive actions prior to the incident occurring. (System housekeeping & system checks).
- Configure and manage system security.
- Lead, coach and develop teams where necessary to improve performance and meet objectives.
- Plan and organise workload to optimise performance.
- Possess sufficiently deep and wide specialist technical skills to assess and direct the technical direction of the infrastructure on which the systems are run.
- Deliver system change and enhancements approved by change requests by agreed targets to include assessment of change requests and delivery of solution once approved.
- Ensure documentation regarding server builds, network configuration, fixes, procedures and diagrams are up-to-date date and completed.
- Proactively define and analyse the root causes of specific infrastructure problems and implement the appropriate solutions to ensure rapid recovery ensuring that the Service Support Centre team are kept up to so they can manage business expectation accurately.
- Measure and provide reports on current performance of services and components in the infrastructure and provide these to the Performance Management function and Senior Management as and when required.
Person specification
Substantial experience of Oracle Database administration required. Experience of Oracle Applications Database administration required. Experience of supporting Oracle Database and Oracle EBS Applications and technologies on an AIX and/or RHEL platform desirable.
- Ensure database are available, secure and performing within departmental service level agreements.
- Perform regular backup, checks and restores for business continuity and resilience.
- Ensure Disaster Recovery databases are up to date to enable failover.
- Support the maintenance of associated technical documentation to ensure they are up-to-date and produce as necessary.
- Develop, test and implement upgrades & patches to Oracle (and other) databases and E Business Suite application components to ensure MOD security requirements are satisfied.
- Provide 2nd and 3rd line support in response to service calls.
- Lead on the creation or migration of new or cloned databases / application tiers.
- Support Access control to databases.
- Liaise with other relevant functions for incident management, issue resolution (including root cause analysis), lesson learned and project support.
- Take an active role in the support/management of the DBA Team maintenance activities in support of the wider Infrastructure Programme.
- Perform maintenance activities including the Installation of patches, updates and bug fixes on a regular basis.
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Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- DDaT Senior Infrastructure Engineer - IT Infrastructure
- DDaT Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Systems Integration
- DDaT Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Technical Understanding
- DDaT Senior Infrastructure Engineer - Troubleshooting and problem resolution
Salary and Benefits
Alongside your salary of £46,040, Ministry of Defence contributes £13,337 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
- An environment with flexible working options Monday-Friday
- 25 days paid annual leave rising (1 day per year) to 30 days upon completion of 5 years’ service (pro rata). In addition to 8 public holidays per year, you will also receive leave for HM The Sovereign's birthday
- Hybrid working where role permits
- An opportunity to be considered for Reward and Recognition
- Family-friendly policies including - parental leave and adoption leave
- Learning and development tailored to your role
- Professional and personal development of skills
- A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
- Minimum of 15 days special leave in a rolling 12 month period for volunteer reserve commitments
- Special paid leave to volunteer up to 6 days per year
- A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
Allowances
The post does not offer relocation expenses.
Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.
External recruits who join the MOD who are new to the Civil Service will be subject to a six-month probation period.
This post is eligible for a Digital Skills Allowance of up to £11,400 per annum. Eligibility for this allowance will be assessed at interview against the 4 core technical skills only and reviewed annually in line with departmental policy.
Employment Hours
This position is advertised at 37 hours per week.
Please Note: Expenses incurred for travel to interviews will not be reimbursed.
Please be advised that the Department is conducting a review of all pay related allowances which could impact on those allowances that the post currently being advertised attracts.
Any move to MOD from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax-Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/.
The Ministry of Defence is committed to providing a safe and healthy working environment for its staff which includes educating them on the benefits of not smoking, protecting them from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke
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