Lead Application Analyst - IT Services - 104369 - Grade 8

at  University of Birmingham

POSITION DETAILS

IT Services
Location: University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham UK
Full time starting salary is normally in the range £46,485 to £55,295 with potential progression once in post to £62,098
Grade: 8
Full Time, Fixed Term contract up to December 2025
Closing date: 21st November 2024

REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE

• Educated to degree level or equivalent qualification plus substantial work experience in a relevant technical/scientific and/or management/supervisory role in a specialist area. A higher degree may also be held. Where no equivalent qualification is held a proven track record of extensive and substantial work experience in a series of progressively more demanding and relevant roles will be required.
• Proven technical specialist knowledge and understanding in a relevant technical area (specialists will require advanced technical expertise).
• The ability to work effectively as a member of a team towards quality service goals and deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills, coupled with a strong customer service orientation, and the ability to tailor responses to specific technical and non-technical audiences.
• A proactive self-starter who not only finds problems but also solutions.
• Ability to prioritise and schedule workload in the face of conflicting demands.
• Structured and methodical approach to problem solving.
• A drive for root cause analysis and subsequently providing strategic solutions for issues/bugs.
• Knowledge of BizTalk Middleware is highly advantageous.
• Requires a thorough understanding of C# and .NET, SQL, and Windows Server.
• APEX development experience and /or systems integration experience is a bonus.
• Understands the importance of equality and diversity in the workplace.
• Evidence of literacy and numeracy.
• Experience of championing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in own work area.
• Ability to monitor and evaluate the extent to which equality and diversity legislation, policies, procedures are applied.
• Ability to identify issues with the potential to impact on protected groups and take appropriate action.

CORE COMPETENCIES/TRANSFERABLE SKILLS

Working at this level you will be able to develop and successfully demonstrate the core competencies/transferable skills outlined in each of the areas shown below. You will be expected to take ownership for getting things done, including calling on or joining others to assist. You will be expected to be flexible as required in supporting your department and wider University.

This post is ideally suited to an application analyst with excellent communication and interpersonal skills, proactive attitude and a solid background in application support, system implementations and integrations. The post holder must have a good understanding of C# (or a similar language) and SQL, whilst an understanding of systems integration would be a bonus. Areas where it would be beneficial for the post holder to have knowledge and experience include:

• Knowledge of the standard IT governance processes such as data governance (DPIA’s), integrations board, design review and change advisory boards.
• Experience of service design, service management and release processes.
• Project management experience

ROLE SUMMARY

In this role you will be joining the Application Operations team which sits within Application Services. The post holder will work with the existing service owners, most notably across the finance, HR and research space but also the BizTalk middleware which services a range of additional business units.

This post is ideally suited to an application analyst with excellent communication and interpersonal skills, proactive attitude and a solid background in application support, system implementations and integrations. The post holder must have a good understanding of C# (or a similar language) and SQL, whilst an understanding of systems integration would be a bonus. Areas where it would be beneficial for the post holder to have knowledge and experience include:

• Knowledge of the standard IT governance processes such as data governance (DPIA’s), integrations board, design review and change advisory boards.
• Experience of service design, service management and release processes.
• Project management experience.

MAIN DUTIES

• Service Level Management: Work towards the existing SLA’s whilst looking at ways to improve service levels to the customer. The post holder will make suggestions on how to improve service levels and will contribute to changes in departmental policy.
• Application Support: Maintains application support processes, and checks that all requests for support are dealt with according to agreed procedures.
• Incident Management:
• Prioritises and diagnoses incidents according to agreed procedures.
• Investigates causes of incidents and seeks resolution.
• Escalates unresolved incidents.
• Facilitates recovery, following resolution of incidents.
• Documents and closes resolved incidents according to agreed procedures.
• Customer Service Support:
• Monitors customer service and collects performance data.
• Assists with the specification, development, research and evaluation of services standards.
• Applies these standards to resolve or escalate issues and gives technical briefings to staff members.
• Testing: Designs and executes test cases and test scripts under own direction, mapping back to pre-determined criteria, recording and reporting outcomes.
• Change Management: Assesses, analyses, develops, documents and implements changes and enhancements based on approved requests for change.
• Release and Deployment:
• Assesses and analyses release components.
• Provides input to scheduling.
• Carries out tests in coordination with testers and component specialists maintaining and administering the tools and methods.
• Problem Management:
• Initiates and monitors actions to investigate and resolve prioritised problems in systems, processes and services.
• Determines problem fixes/remedies.
• Assists with the implementation of agreed remedies and preventative measures or proposes escalation.
• Will work on technical debt projects such as OS/DB migrations, service upgrades and application migrations.
• Actively manages equality, diversity and inclusion through monitoring and evaluation and actively challenging unacceptable behaviour.
• Supports the University’s sustainability agenda through resource efficient working.
• Any other duties commensurate with the grade.

ROLE CONTEXT

Roles at this level will either be technical specialists operating at a very high specialist level as expert contributors or experienced functional/technical professionals with a broader knowledge across their discipline with managerial responsibility for the delivery or ownership of a service.