Cloud Operations Lead

LV=; Hitchin, Exeter; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

30 days holiday

Pension matching

Annual bonus

Private medical insurance

Flexible benefits

Discounts on LV products

Job summary

LV= is seeking a Cloud Operations Lead to build and steer the operational capability of our Microsoft Azure cloud estate. You will own day-to-day health across Azure PaaS and AKS, applying SRE principles and strong service management.

The role is based in the UK with a hybrid setup from Bournemouth, Hitchin or Exeter, and involves defining standards, improving resilience, and turning incident insights into lasting improvements.

Qualifications

• Strong experience operating enterprise-scale Microsoft Azure environments.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams and drive improvements.
• Experience with cloud financials and cost optimisation practices.

Responsibilities

• Establish and lead Cloud Operations, defining service ownership, support arrangements, operational controls, priorities and measures of success.
• Improve service reliability and observability using Azure Monitor and Application Insights to create actionable alerts and SLIs/SLAs.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, coordinating recovery and engagement with Microsoft support.
• Oversee AKS operations, including cluster health, capacity, upgrades, networking, and containerised microservices.
• Strengthen security and governance, partnering on policy compliance and access controls.
• Own operational FinOps, improving cost visibility, forecasting and budget monitoring.
• Drive automation with IaC using Terraform, Azure DevOps, PowerShell and Azure CLI.
• Maintain production readiness with runbooks and clear ownership.

Skills

Azure AKS

SRE practices

Cloud governance

Incident management

Automation mindset

Tools

Terraform

Azure DevOps

PowerShell

Azure CLI

Log Analytics

Job description

About The Role

We’re looking for a Cloud Operations Lead to establish and lead the operational capability behind LV=’s Microsoft Azure cloud estate. You’ll take ownership of day-to-day operational health across Azure Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), bringing together technical leadership, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles and strong service management.

As a leading UK life and pensions mutual insurer with a proud history dating back to 1843, we exist to help people live financially confident lives – protecting their income while they work and maximising it when they stop. Today, over one million members and customers trust us to look after their futures, families, and finances.

Joining us means becoming part of a team that puts our members, customers, and advisers at the heart of everything we do.

We’re committed to creating an inclusive culture where colleagues can thrive. We are proud to have built a workplace where our colleagues feel welcomed, respected, supported, and valued – reflected in our recognition as one of the Financial Times UK’s Best Employers in 2025 and 2026.

We celebrate individuality and believe our differences make us stronger, so bring your true self and help shape the future of LV=.

This is an opportunity to shape how we operate—not simply maintain what’s already there. You’ll define operational standards, strengthen resilience and observability, and turn incident insights into lasting improvements.

You will be based out of our Bournemouth, Hitchin or Exeter office on a hybrid working basis.

Key responsibilities

Working closely with Cloud Engineering, Platform Engineering, Cyber Security, Service Management and application and product teams, you’ll:

• Establish and lead Cloud Operations, defining service ownership, support arrangements, operational controls, priorities and measures of success.
• Improve service reliability and observability, using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and Application Insights to create actionable alerts, reduce noise and embed service level indicators and objectives.
• Provide technical leadership during major incidents, coordinating recovery, engaging Microsoft support and ensuring investigations lead to measurable improvements.
• Oversee AKS operations, including cluster health, capacity, upgrades, networking, identity, storage and the dependencies of containerised microservices.
• Strengthen security and governance, partnering with Cyber Security on policy compliance, vulnerability remediation, access controls and identity and credential management.
• Own operational FinOps, improving cost visibility, forecasting and budget monitoring, investigating anomalies and delivering measurable optimisation.
• Make automation the default, using Infrastructure as Code, policy-driven remediation and tools such as Terraform, Azure DevOps, PowerShell and Azure CLI to reduce manual work.
• Keep services resilient and ready for production, overseeing recovery arrangements, capacity, platform lifecycles and operational readiness, supported by clear runbooks and ownership.
• Champion responsible AI-assisted engineering, identifying opportunities to improve investigation, analysis, documentation and automation, with appropriate security controls and human validation.

About you

You’ll have strong experience operating enterprise-scale Microsoft Azure environments, alongside the technical credibility and leadership skills to bring teams together and drive improvements.

We’re looking for:

• A broad understanding of Azure PaaS, with strong AKS, Kubernetes, container and microservices expertise, including diagnosing complex distributed-service issues
• Strong knowledge of Azure Monitor, Log Analytics/KQL, Application Insights, Azure Policy, Entra ID, Azure RBAC, Key Vault and cloud security controls
• Experience across incident, problem, availability, capacity and continual service improvement disciplines
• A good understanding of SRE practices, cloud resilience and FinOps, including how to balance reliability, security and cost
• Demonstrable automation and Infrastructure as Code experience, ideally using Terraform, Azure DevOps, PowerShell and Azure CLI
• Clear communication and strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to coordinate action across technical and service teams
• An understanding of where AI-assisted engineering can safely and responsibly improve cloud operations

You’ll be calm and structured under pressure, curious about root causes and comfortable challenging processes that no longer work. Above all, you’ll bring an “automate rather than repeat” mindset, taking ownership of operational outcomes and continually looking for better ways to work.

Desirable:

• Managed Prometheus and Grafana experience
• Relevant Microsoft Azure or Kubernetes certifications
• ITIL and/or SRE experience within a regulated enterprise
• Experience introducing AIOps or AI-assisted engineering practices; experience with Cursor would be an advantage

If you’re looking for a role where you can combine hands-on technical leadership with the opportunity to establish and improve a cloud operations capability, we’d like to hear from you.

Rewards & Benefits

At LV= Savings and Retirement, you’ll go above and beyond to do the right thing for our customers. We’ll reward your hard work with an attractive, competitive salary and benefits package, which includes:

• 30 days' holiday, with the option to buy up to 5 additional days
• Competitive pension scheme - LV= Life and Pensions will double-match the amount you pay, up to 14% (subject to National Minimum Wage requirements)
• An annual bonus scheme based on personal performance
• Single-cover private medical insurance (with the option for you to upgrade to family cover)
• Flexible benefits, including a cycle to work scheme, personal accident insurance, critical illness cover and dental insurance
• Up to 20% discount on our life products for you and your immediate family
• A group life assurance policy with 4 x your basic pay to go to your dependents (you’ll have the option to increase to 8 x cover)
• Group Income Protection after 5 years of service
• Access to our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for support when you need it
• A virtual GP service
• Shared parental leave

Please note all salary sacrifice benefits are subject to National Minimum Wage requirements i.e. you are unable to select any benefits that would reduce your base pay below the minimum wage threshold.

About Us

We’re proud of our inclusive culture at LV= and, as an equal-opportunity employer, we continually work to remove unconscious bias from our recruitment process. We value our colleagues for what they bring to our team regardless of any protected status or characteristics they may have. Talk to us about flexible working as part of your application; if it’s right for you, our members and customers, and our business, then we’ll do everything we can to make it happen.

Please note that we are unable to offer Skilled Worker Visa Sponsorship for this role. Therefore, you must ensure that you are eligible to work in the UK without our sponsorship in order for your application to be considered.