IT Support Team Lead

Blue Zoo Productions; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Hybrid/Remote options

Career development

Profit share

London studio space

Tech-enabled environment

Job summary

Blue Zoo Productions in London is seeking an IT Support Team Lead to oversee the IT team, ensure tools and support for everyone in the studio, and provide calm, hands-on leadership in a fast-paced creative environment. The role involves managing the support queue, coaching engineers, and collaborating with Production, Pipeline and People & Talent.

You’ll implement improvements, automate tasks, and plan capacity with onsite and remote support across regions.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in IT support, with mentoring experience.
• Clear communication to non-technical staff.
• Experience in animation or creative environment.
• Strong troubleshooting across Windows, Mac, networks.
• Familiarity with Google Workspace admin and AD/GPO basics.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop an IT support team with clear priorities.
• Oversee helpdesk, prioritize incidents, and report KPIs to management.
• Escalate complex issues and collaborate with sysadmin and other teams.
• Manage workstation rollout, upgrades, and asset management.
• Support creative software pipelines (Adobe, Toon Boom, Maya, etc.).
• Maintain security practices including MFA and patching.

Skills

Proven IT support

Team leadership

Excellent communication

Animation/creative industry experience

Windows/Mac/network troubleshooting

Ticketing/helpdesk experience

Google Workspace admin

Tools

Ticketing system

Google Workspace

Endpoint management

Job description

We’re sourcing a hands‑on IT Support Team Lead to join our Blue Zoo IT team. You'll lead our IT support team and make sure everyone in the studio has the tools, kit and help they need. You'll be part problem‑solver, part people‑leader, and a calm head in a fast‑paced environment.

Reporting into the Head of IT, you'll manage the team and oversee the support queue, which comes in through a few different routes (Ticketing Helpdesk, the HR‑IT inbox and more), and you'll still roll your sleeves up when things get challenging. Requests here are always evolving and often last‑minute, so you'll also take a fresh look at how we work. You'll spot where we can automate the repetitive tasks, streamline our processes and practices, and keep improving them as the studio grows, so the team can keep things running smoothly and effectively.

We are very happy to discuss flexible, hybrid and remote working options for all our vacancies. This opportunity is being offered on a permanent contract, full time (PAYE). The successful candidate must be based in the UK.

Day to Day:

• Lead, coach and support a team of IT support engineers, establishing clear priorities, rotas, and individual development plans

• Oversee the helpdesk and ensuring requests and incidents are handled in a timely manner, and communicated clearly and kindly with the person involved and on the ticket for handover plus routinely report back to line manager key performance indicators such as average ticket response/close times so positive progress can be tracked

• Be the escalation point for complex issues, and work with sysadmin and infrastructure colleagues on bigger challenges as well as other technical and non‑technical teams such as Pipeline and People & Talent.

• Look after workstation setup, rollout, upgrades and maintenance, including high-spec creative workstations

• Conduct periodic checks on office equipment and maintain efficient workflow and asset management systems

• Oversee the process of onboarding of new joiners, internal movers and offboarding of leavers equipment and accounts, working closely with the support team and People & Talent

• Support creative software and pipelines (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, Toon Boom, Maya, Unreal, Blender, Houdini, Nuke) alongside production and technical teams

• Daily checks of monitoring and security systems and seeing these issues through to resolution or escalation the systems team

• Support good security practice, including MFA, patching, device encryption and staff awareness

• Assistance with resource planning such as ensuring there’s always onsite support in London and remote support for regional offices.

• Assistance in capacity planning and procurement and provisioning

• Keep our asset inventory, licences and documentation up to date, assisting in where things should be delegated and/or escalated (pipeline, production, etc)

• Improve how we work by spotting patterns, fixing root causes, and building simple self‑serve guides and processes

• Analyse support metrics and complex data to identify patterns, evaluate root causes, and recommend continuous improvements

• Oversee and help with studio moves, events and AV set‑ups when needed

About You

Must Have:

• Proven experience in IT support, with some experience leading or mentoring others (formally or informally)

• Excellent communication skills. A calm, approachable communicator who can explain technical things to non‑technical people

• Experience in animation, VFX, games, design or another creative environment

• Strong troubleshooting skills across Windows, Mac, DCC applications and remote access, including tracking down performance issues across the workstation, network and storage, and knowing when to escalat.

• Good knowledge of Google Workspace admin, networking basics, and endpoint management, Active Directory users and groups, GPOs, SRP, Windows firewall.

• Proven experience using a ticketing/helpdesk system, prioritizing tasks effectively under time constraints to optimize department workflow

• Organised, reliable and comfortable juggling competing demands while staying open to feedback and growth.

• Ability to use AI ethically to help accelerate work and improve accuracy.

• Works well under pressure in high pressured environments

• Proactively seek continuous improvement, building sustainable self‑serve guides and habits rather than just fixing immediate problems

• You lead by example and bring out the best in your team, offering coaching through challenges or mentoring where it's needed.

• Ability to identify other staff members communication styles and adjust your own communication for to help them, the team and the business

• Provide objective coaching, performance feedback, and guidance alongside the Head of IT to elevate team capabilities and align with business objective

Bonus Points:

• General networking and firewall experience

• Familiarity with render farms, shared storage (NAS/SAN) or pipeline tools

• Experience with scripting (PowerShell, Bash, Python) or automation to innovate and optimise daily workflows

• Knowledge of configuration management systems and MDM tools

• ITIL or similar certification, or relevant security awareness (e.g. Cyber Essentials)

About Us

Blue Zoo is a leading animation studio in the UK, with a world‑class reputation as the go‑to place for creating bold, fun and characterful animation. Established in London in 2000, the studio has grown to become the largest dedicated CG animation studio in the UK, picking up a shelf full of BAFTAs, an Annie and an Emmy along the way!

We couldn’t be prouder that Blue Zoo is the first major animation studio in the world to receive B Corp certification.

We’ve been independently certified by B Lab, a non‑profit organisation who award the B Corp certification. The certification verifies companies who are working to improve the lives of employees as well as industries as a whole. The certification process involves over 170 rigorous metrics to improve the lives of our staff, customers, suppliers, and the local community, ensuring we are not just saying we are ethical with empty gestures, but independently evidencing it.

We are going through an exciting period of growth and are building a studio that is full of amazingly talented, happy artists, making work they are proud of, which in turn makes a small contribution to a happier world. Blue Zoo believes that a healthy balance in our lives - whatever our situation - is key to supporting the wellbeing of our staff. We offer flexible working to support this.

We look for people who have expertise, enthusiasm and are motivated to make things better. You’ll work alongside a talented and diverse group of people who respect each other's differences and seek to understand and embrace fresh perspectives.

What we’ve got for you:

• Winner of Broadcast Best Places to Work in TV 2019, 2020, 2022, 2024, 2025 & 2026.
• Flexible and remote working policy
• Play a role in our Inclusive Blue Zoo Shorts Programme
• Many in‑person and remote social events throughout the year
• Career development opportunities including training, mentoring and more.
• Quarterly employee feedback and engagement programme
• Benefits package including cycle to work scheme, gym memberships, shopping discounts and offers
• Great studio space in the heart of London
• Studio lunches plus breakfasts and healthy snacks
• Profit share (for UK employees who have been with us for 2+ years)

Blue Zoo is committed to creating and nurturing an inclusive studio that promotes and values diversity and invites everyone to ‘bring their whole selves’ to work. We believe that companies that truly embrace and value diversity, and create an environment where everyone from any background can do their best work, are better companies.

We’ve recently become Class Confident - an initiative by The TV Foundation designed to remove barriers for people from working‑class backgrounds entering and remaining in the television industry.

To be engaged our people have to feel included and valued. We work hard to build and nurture a culture where inclusiveness is embedded in the way we work, not just an initiative. We strive to engender a studio community that feels a deep sense of pride and commitment that transcends any role, department or level and works together to produce excellent and engaging work.