Infrastructure Manager Technology - Cold Chain Logistics

Our client is a leading cold chain logistics and temperature-controlled supply chain organisation, operating across warehousing, transport hubs, and distribution centre environments. The business supports mission-critical logistics operations where infrastructure uptime, system reliability, temperature visibility, and operational continuity are essential to customer service, product integrity, and compliance.

They seek an experienced Infrastructure Manager responsible for the design, delivery, and ongoing management of the organisation's technology infrastructure across all cold chain facilities, including warehouses, transport hubs, cold storage operations, and distribution centres. The role will ensure high availability, reliability, security, and performance of IT systems that directly support temperature-controlled logistics operations, including WMS, IoT temperature monitoring, environmental sensors, CCTV, warehouse automation, and network connectivity across a multi-site operating environment.

Key Responsibilities

Infrastructure Strategy & Architecture

• Develop and maintain the infrastructure roadmap aligned to business growth and cold chain operational requirements.
• Design resilient infrastructure solutions for temperature-controlled warehousing environments, including redundancy for power, networking, cooling, automation systems, connectivity, and critical site operations.
• Lead the adoption of cloud-first, IoT-enabled, and scalable infrastructure technologies to support operational performance and future growth.

Network & Systems Operations

• Manage all on-premises and cloud infrastructure environments, including servers, storage, virtualization, Microsoft 365, Azure, backup platforms, and enterprise systems.
• Ensure stable and secure network performance across warehouses, cold rooms, blast freezers, transport hubs, and offices.
• Optimise infrastructure to support WMS, TMS, RFID, telematics, CCTV, automation equipment, and operational technology platforms.
• Oversee secure remote access solutions for operations teams, mobile workforce users, site technicians, and approved third-party vendors.

Cold Chain Technology Support

• Ensure real-time reliability of temperature monitoring systems, IoT sensors, data loggers, environmental telemetry, and other cold chain technology platforms.
• Oversee integration between operational technology and IT systems, including SCADA, refrigeration monitoring, conveyor systems, sorting automation, and warehouse technology platforms.
• Implement monitoring tools to ensure uninterrupted connectivity and infrastructure resilience in low-temperature and harsh operating environments.
• Work closely with operations, engineering, facilities, quality, and compliance teams to ensure technology infrastructure supports cold chain integrity and operational uptime.

Incident, Risk & Change Management

• Lead incident response for infrastructure outages impacting cold room operations, inventory handling, transport dispatch, site connectivity, or customer service delivery.
• Maintain disaster recovery and business continuity plans for critical infrastructure and operational systems.
• Own the change management process for infrastructure upgrades, site deployments, system improvements, and technology transitions.
• Identify infrastructure risks and implement mitigation plans to reduce downtime, improve resilience, and protect operational performance.

Vendor & Contract Management

• Manage relationships with managed service providers, telecommunications providers, refrigeration IoT vendors, hardware suppliers, cloud service providers, and other technology partners.
• Negotiate and manage SLAs to ensure rapid response times for mission-critical facilities and operational systems.
• Monitor vendor performance, service delivery, compliance, and cost efficiency against agreed standards.

Leadership & Team Management

• Lead and develop a team of system engineers, network engineers, site technicians, and external support partners.
• Provide technical escalation, guidance, and mentorship during major incidents, infrastructure changes, and project delivery.
• Build a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, operational discipline, and safety awareness.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent professional experience will also be considered.
• Minimum 7 years' experience in infrastructure operations, with at least 3 years in a leadership or management role.
• Experience supporting industrial, logistics, warehousing, manufacturing, distribution, or multi-site operational environments.
• Demonstrated experience managing mission-critical infrastructure and systems in operationally sensitive environments.
• Strong understanding of infrastructure in industrial and warehouse environments.
• Expertise in networks, including LAN, WAN, WiFi, SD-WAN, VPN, firewalls, and wireless systems designed for harsh or operational environments.
• Experience with Azure, Microsoft 365, virtualization, servers, storage, backup, endpoint, and cloud infrastructure environments.
• Knowledge of operational technology systems, industrial IoT devices, cold room sensor technologies, environmental monitoring, and telemetry platforms.
• Familiarity with SCADA, refrigeration monitoring platforms, WMS, TMS, RFID, telematics, CCTV, and warehouse automation integrations.
• Strong incident management, troubleshooting, disaster recovery, business continuity, and infrastructure risk management capability.
• Proven vendor management experience, including MSPs, telecom providers, hardware suppliers, cloud providers, and specialist technology vendors.
• Strong leadership capability with the ability to manage internal teams, site-based technicians, and external service partners.