Job Purpose

The Trusted Research Environment (TRE) Systems Administrator is a key member of the College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences (MVLS) Service team responsible for providing and supporting the Unit’s IT Infrastructure.  The postholder will be primarily responsible for managing and maintaining the physical and virtual Linux and Windows Server core infrastructure and responsible for systems administration, user support, and development.

Main Duties and responsibilities

1. Perform daily operations and maintenance tasks for Windows and Linux systems supporting TRE in a secure enterprise environment, ensuring high availability and performance of research services and infrastructure.

2. Manage TRE server infrastructure including liaising with Vendor Support (e.g., Dell, Broadcom, DataVita, Vyatta), Network Connectivity (University Information Services/ DataVita) and Co-location site (DataVita).

3. Provide support and maintenance for virtualized systems (VMWare)

4. Contribute to the creation, maintenance, and refinement of procedural documentation for key operational tasks

5. Interpret and adhere to procedural documentation for executing operational tasks related to both Windows and Linux operating systems, ensuring consistency, compliance, and system reliability.

6. Install, test and verify operating system patches, ensuring systems remain compliant and up to date with security and performance requirements.

7. Managing ESXi (Dell PowerEdge) server resources, including modification of RAM, GPU, CPU, Storage Disks when necessary to ensure uninterrupted service to the users.

8. Monitoring performance, health, and availability of systems for TRE Workspace services ensuring minimal downtime and optimal user experience.

9.  Support TRE Workspace services user requirements definition and tool deployment including RStudio, Jupyter Notebooks, Python, PostgreSQL and containerised services.

10. Manage and maintain the TRE service storage systems running a mixture of Dell PowerScale (Isilon), PowerStore, and PowerProtect.

11. Manage the Virtualisation servers to ensure effective resource utilisation, including, cloning servers for service expansion and development /testing environments.

12. Plan and implement short and long-term updates to mitigate security vulnerabilities in coordination with the University IT Security Team and appropriate technical/ research services colleagues balancing risk mitigation with service continuity.

13. Engage in personal, professional and career development, to enhance both specialist and transferable skills in accordance with desired career trajectory.

14. Undertake any other reasonable duties in line with the role to support the continued development and operation of TRE.

Knowledge, Qualifications, Skills and Experience

Knowledge/Qualifications

Essential:

A1  Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework level 9 in Computing Science or a related discipline, (Ordinary Degree, Scottish Vocational Qualification level 4), or equivalent (including professional accreditation with relevant formal training), and experience of personal development in a similar or related role(s).

A2. Excellent technical knowledge across a range of IT areas with specialist in depth knowledge of Linux and Windows servers.

A3. Awareness of the computing requirements of staff and research partners with a  range of abilities.

Desirable:

B1.  Awareness of 5 Safes principles

B2.  Awareness of security requirements and architecture principles of Trusted Research Environments/ Secure Data Environments

B3.  Knowledge of Clinical Research/ Life Sciences Data Analysis approaches and controls

Skills

Essential:

C1. Excellent Programming and scripting ability in a variety of different languages, including Python.

C2. Demonstrable ability to organise and maintain computing resources, managing multiple systems concurrently and in a timely manner to adhere to deadlines.

C3. Excellent communication, both verbal and written.

C4. Ability to take a problem/ project from conception to completion, interpreting and integrating technical and user needs appropriately

C5. Strong analytical and innovating problem-solving skills, particularly in complex heterogeneous environments in which solutions need to be identified and enacted quickly whilst under pressure.

C6. Highly self-motivated with good workload management skills.

C7. Excellent interpersonal skills, including influencing and negotiation skills.

C8. Able to demonstrate the application of orchestration skills.

C9. Able to demonstrate the deployment of containerisation technologies.

Desirable:

D1. Able to conduct an estate audit assessment and produce documentation.

D2. Able to develop and maintain Standard Operating Procedures.

Experience

Essential

E1. Significant experience in a relevant technical IT role, preferably within a research or Higher Education environment.

E2. Experience of server maintenance and the management, and application of updates to Windows and Linux server infrastructure.

E3. Experience of network and firewall configuration

E4. Experience of managing Apache/Tomcat services

E5. Experience of managing MySQL, PostgreSQL and/or MariaDB databases.

E6. Broad experience of managing Windows, Linux/Unix in a complex heterogeneous environment.

E7. Experience of taking responsibility for actions that can have considerable impact on the user community.

E8. Experience of negotiating with colleagues.

E9. Experience administering systems within Trusted Research Environment/ Secure Data Environment, and working with sensitive information

Desirable

F1.Supporting Research in an academic environment.

Terms and Conditions

Salary will be Grade 7, £40,497 - £45,413 per annum.

This post is full time and open ended. Relocation assistance will be provided where appropriate.

The University of Glasgow has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.  If you require a Skilled Worker visa to work in the UK, you will be required to meet the eligibility requirements of the visa route to be assigned a Certificate of Sponsorship.

Please note that this post may be eligible to be sponsored under the Skilled Worker visa route if tradeable points can be used under the Skilled Worker visa rules. For more information please visit: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa.

As a valued member of our team, you can expect:

1 A warm welcoming and engaging organisational culture, where your talents are developed and nurtured, and success is celebrated and shared.

2 An excellent employment package with generous terms and conditions including 41 days of leave for full time staff, pension - pensions handbook https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/payandpensions/pensions/, benefits and discount packages.

3 A flexible approach to working.

4 A commitment to support your health and wellbeing, including a free 6-month UofG Sport membership for all new staff joining the University  https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/staff/healthwellbeing/.

We believe that we can only reach our full potential through the talents of all. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our values. Applications are particularly welcome from across our communities and in particular people from the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) community, and other protected characteristics who are under-represented within the University. Read more on how the University promotes and embeds all aspects of equality and diversity within our community https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/.

We endorse the principles of Athena Swan https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/humanresources/equalitydiversity/athenaswan/ and hold bronze, silver and gold awards across the University.

We are investing in our organisation, and we will invest in you too. Please visit our website https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/jobs/ for more information.

Closing date: 23:45 on Monday 21st July 2025