Job Title:             Client Technical Services Lead

Salary: Up to £75,000 Depending on experience

Location:             West London - with a fixed weekly on-site customer commitment and regular visits to other customer sites.

Contract type:    Permanent

#LI-Hybrid

About the role

The Client Technical Services Lead is the senior technical owner of a small portfolio of ARO's Public Sector and Education customers.

Your focus will be to grow those accounts by finding and shaping the technology change each customer needs, and to make sure that what ARO has sold is delivered as promised.

You will work closely with the Account Manager and Service Delivery Manager to ensure customers receive the right technical direction, that their technology roadmap is developed and maintained, and that opportunities for service improvement and account growth are identified and progressed.

You will initially take responsibility for a significant Education customer engagement, acting as a senior technical advisor, holding the rolling three-year technology roadmap and acting as a key technical contact.

The role will also cover a portfolio of named Public Sector and Education accounts, where you will lead structured account reviews, technology gap assessments and three-year roadmaps. You will identify opportunities to improve the customer's technology environment and develop commercially viable solutions.

Working alongside Account Managers and technical specialists, you will turn approved roadmap items into qualified opportunities, with a focus on incremental gross profit, margin and cost-to-serve.

Requirements

What you’ll do

• Customer technology leadership: Act as the senior technical contact for assigned customers, building relationships with senior IT stakeholders and providing technical direction across their managed service environments.
• Technology roadmaps and reviews: Own and maintain three-year technology roadmaps, leading structured account reviews to identify technology gaps, risks, single points of failure and opportunities for improvement.
• Commercial account growth: Work alongside Account Managers to identify and develop opportunities across ARO's solution areas, growing incremental gross profit across assigned accounts.
• Solution development: Translate customer requirements and approved roadmap items into qualified opportunities, working with pre-sales architects and technical specialists to develop solutions and commercial proposals.
• Commercial assessment: Evaluate opportunities based on customer value, margin, cost-to-serve and commercial fit before committing resource.
• Customer governance and innovation: Lead strategic technology discussions, customer review forums and innovation sessions, bringing vendor expertise and technology developments into customer roadmaps.
• Delivery assurance: Track sold roadmap items through to delivery, working with service delivery and project teams to manage risks and ensure agreed customer outcomes are achieved.
• Service and relationship development: Oversee key customer technology commitments, including service standards, demand planning, cyber security reporting, multi-vendor coordination and continuity of technical knowledge.

What we are looking for?

We are looking for someone with a strong technical background who combines technical knowledge with commercial awareness and the ability to develop customer relationships and identify opportunities for account growth.

You will be comfortable working with senior customer stakeholders, leading technology discussions, developing roadmaps and working alongside Account Managers to turn customer requirements into commercially viable opportunities.

Essential

• Senior technical background across the managed service estate (network, infrastructure and cloud, Microsoft 365 and identity, security) with the breadth to hold a whole-estate view and the judgement to know when to bring in a specialist.
• Proven experience as a technical account manager, service architect or senior consultant with responsibility for customer technology roadmaps and governance, ideally within a managed service provider.
• Experience with UK public sector or education customers, including governor or board decision-making and public procurement.
• Able to run a structured gap assessment and present a tranche-based roadmap with options, costs and decisions to customer leadership.
• Commercial acumen: comfortable building the business case for change, working alongside an account manager to a shared target, and reading margin and cost-to-serve.
• Credible with customer executives, vendor partners and ARO's engineers alike; writes and presents clearly.
• Working knowledge of Cyber Essentials Plus, ISO 27001 and UK GDPR obligations as they affect a managed estate

Desirable:

• Experience in UK further or higher education, including working to the academic calendar.
• ITIL v4 Foundation or equivalent service management grounding.
• Experience of HPE Aruba, Extreme Networks and Microsoft partner programmes and vendor executive engagement.
• Experience of an incoming managed service transition, including TUPE.
• Familiarity with Jisc services and the education technology landscape, including immersive and AI-enabled learning.
• Experience of PRINCE2 or ARO's DADBoM delivery lifecycle (Discovery, Analysis, Design, Build, Operate, Maintain).
• Relevant certifications, for example Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Microsoft 365 Administrator Expert, or vendor networking certifications.

Benefits

Who are we?

ARO has 25 years’ experience in Collaboration, Connectivity, Cloud and Infrastructure and Cyber Security services both in the UK and Internationally and has a nationwide presence with offices across the UK.

As one of the UK’s leading independent IT and communication experts our mission is to deliver a seamless technology experience to all end users. To make that vision a reality, we need bright, tenacious and inspiring talent to help drive our performance, growth and achieve this mission.

To make us successful we focus on strong communication, a culture based on fun, trust and collaboration. We have created a modern workplace environment, which is full of engaged, energetic, positive and curious people whose productivity, resilience and wellbeing allow them to thrive.

In 2021 we were awarded the People Insight’s Outstanding Workplace Award, which celebrates organisations building positive workplace cultures and acting on employee feedback to spark positive change. 

Why Work for ARO?

At ARO we are committed to creating an excellent employee experience. Our employees, culture and additional benefits all make ARO a great place to work. Come join us!

We offer a wide range of benefits and incentives to our employees including:

💰 Company Pension Scheme and matching contributions

🎁 Company Perks portal

🏥 Private Medical insurance

🛡️ Life assurance

✈️ 25 days holiday plus bank holidays plus holiday trading

🎂 Your Birthday off, on us

💪 Health Club and Wellbeing Scheme

📈 ARO Shares after 12 months employment

🤝 Employee Assistance Programme

💻 Technical Training Academy and E-learning

💼 Hybrid working

If even 80% of this matches your experience and attributes, we would be delighted to hear from you.