Head of IT Infrastructure Services

**General Information**:
**Vacancy number**
- 970/2025

**Recruitment type**
- External recruitment (international)

**Type of contract**
- Fixed-term appointment

**Posted date**
- 08-Oct-2025

**Deadline to apply**
- 29-Oct-2025

**Duty station**
- Strasbourg

**Grade**
- A1/A2

**Entity**
- Registry of the European Court of Human Rights

**Description & Requirements**:
**Your Team**
- The Court’s IT Department is divided into multiple teams which develop, maintain and support IT systems and services designed to enhance the Court’s overall productivity and efficiency, optimise working conditions for Judges and staff, and provide effective new IT services for external parties. Upon your arrival, you will receive comprehensive training to ensure you are fully integrated into the IT Department.

**Your Role**

As a Head of the Court’s IT Infrastructure (SysOps) services, you will be part of the IT Department’s management team and responsible for approximately 10 staff and external contractors. Your role will focus on:

- ensuring the Court’s IT infrastructure continues to evolve with new technologies and revised working methods to meet the needs of internal and external users;
- managing the SysOps team to ensure the effective day-to-day running of the Court's IT network for 900 on-site and remote users; providing leadership and direction to team members, allocating roles and responsibilities, setting objectives and evaluating the performance; fostering co-operation and team spirit; providing technical coaching, mentoring and transfer of competence;
- identifying and providing technical expertise in relevant domains to complement the work of the SysOps team and meet objectives;
- overseeing the scope, timelines, budgets and resource allocation for all IT infrastructure projects;
- implementing security best practices and the principles of the zero trust security model;
- planning and advising on the Court's IT budget; overseeing the maintenance and renewal of hardware and software; monitoring the life cycle of systems and maintenance contracts;
- negotiating and concluding contracts with suppliers and consultants; formulating technical requirements for specifications; preparing and analysing tenders; carrying out comparative analyses;
- ensuring the security and integrity of data and systems, including backup and disaster recovery; directing audits of the IT system and business continuity tests;
- co-ordinating the interconnection of the Court's information system with that of the other entites of the Council of Europe, in collaboration with the Directorate of Information Technology (DIT) and other Council of Europe entities.

**Requirements to apply**

You must:

- hold a higher education degree or qualification in information technology;
- have a minimum of 5 years of professional experience in managing a team of IT professionals responsible for maintaining and supporting IT infrastructures;
- have a very good knowledge of one of the two Council of Europe's official languages (English/French) and good knowledge of the other (English/French).

You must also:

- be a citizen of one of the member states of the Council of Europe and fulfil the conditions for appointment to the civil service of that state;
- have discharged any obligation concerning national service (military, civil or comparable);
- not be the parent, child, stepchild or grandchild of a serving staff member of the Council of Europe;
- be under the age of 65 years.

**Key competencies**
- Managerial - Leadership
- Managerial - Management of teams
- Operational - Planning and work organisation
- Operational - Analysis and problem solving
- Professional and technical expertise:

- substantial experience managing infrastructure projects in an enterprise-scale Microsoft environment (on-premise and Cloud);
- strong project management skills;
- experience managing service contracts, conducting calls for tenders and contributing to IT budgets.

**Desirable competencies**
- Operational - Results orientation
- Operational - Concern for quality
- Professional and technical expertise:

- in-depth knowledge and experience of Microsoft Azure.

**What we offer**

This job vacancy is for an international external recruitment. You can consult the conditions of employment (salaries, allowances, pension scheme, social insurance, etc.) on the webpage **What we offer**.

**Applications and selection procedure**

**Important information