SQL DBA Team Lead

Ekco; Milton Keynes; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave 25d

Birthday leave

Company pension

EAP

Pluralsight access

Growth opportunities

Job summary

Ekco seeks an experienced SQL Server DBA to lead its Managed SQL Service. The Lead DBA will act as the technical authority for the practice, ensuring customer SQL Server estates are managed, maintained, and optimised to high standards of availability, performance, security and compliance.

The role involves mentoring DBAs, ensuring SLAs are met, managing workloads, and contributing to onboarding and proposed changes.

Qualifications

• Extensive hands-on SQL Server administration across versions 2012–current.
• Excellent HA/DR knowledge: Always On AGs, Failover Clustering, log shipping, replication.
• Backup and restore expertise including URL/blob storage, point-in-time, and full restores.
• Experience configuring and troubleshooting Transactional Replication.
• Strong networking and Windows Server understanding, AD and DNS.
• Scripting and automation via PowerShell and T-SQL.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring tools (Redgate/SolarWinds/Datadog).
• Azure experience incl. Azure SQL, IaaS, or hybrid environments.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership to the DBAs and engineers within the Managed SQL Service team.
• Ensure SLAs and service commitments are met and address risks early.
• Manage the team queue and balance tickets, planned work and projects.
• Maintain accurate documentation, runbooks, and client configuration records.
• Conduct proactive health checks, capacity planning and performance baselining.
• Present findings and recommendations to client stakeholders during reviews.
• Support presales: scoping, sizing, and proposals for database work.
• Lead onboarding of new clients: discovery, health check, remediation plan and transition.
• Plan and lead installations, upgrades, migrations, and decommissioning.
• Participate in a 24/7 on-call rota for the managed service.

Skills

SQL Server

Always On AGs

Failover Clustering

Backup and restore

Replication

PowerShell

T-SQL

Azure SQL

Security administration

Monitoring tools

Tools

Redgate SQL Monitor

SolarWinds SQL Sentry

Datadog

Job description

About Ekco

Founded in 2016, Ekco has quickly become one of Europe's fastest-growing cloud solution providers and your trusted security-first Managed Service Provider.

IT leaders choose Ekco to drive operational efficiency, scale smarter and stay ahead of risk – powered by local expertise, delivered at European scale.

We specialise in helping organisations advance their cloud maturity guiding transformation, strengthening security, and maximising the value of their technology investments.

In simple terms: we help organisations modernise with confidence securing their systems, optimising their cloud, and keeping them resilient in a rapidly changing world.

Today, we’re a thriving team of 1,000+ talented and supportive colleagues across the UK, Ireland, Benelux, South Africa, and Malaysia—and we’re continuing to grow.

At Ekco, How We Work Matters As Much As What We Deliver. Our People Live By Four Core Values That Shape Everything We Do

• On It: We take ownership, follow through, and get things done.
• All In : We collaborate, support each other, and commit fully to shared goals.
• Connected: We build trusted relationships with colleagues, clients, and partners.
• Hungry to Grow: We stay curious, keep learning, and push ourselves to the next level.

If these values resonate with you, you’ll feel right at home here.

The Role

Ekco is seeking an experienced SQL Server DBA to lead its Managed SQL Service function. The Lead DBA serves as the technical authority for the practice, acting as the senior escalation point for incidents, service requests, and project delivery. The role is responsible for ensuring customer SQL Server estates are managed, maintained, and optimised to the highest standards of availability, performance, security, and compliance.

Day-to-day At Ekco

Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and guidance to other DBAs and engineers within the Managed SQL Service team.
• Ensure contracted SLAs and service commitments are consistently met, and act early where they are at risk.
• Manage the team's queue and workload distribution, balancing reactive tickets, planned work and project commitments.
• Ensure documentation, runbooks and configuration records are accurate and kept current for every client.
• Maintain proactive health checking, capacity planning and performance baselining across the estate.
• Attend customer service reviews and present technical findings, risks, and recommendations to client stakeholders.
• Support presales: scoping database work, sizing effort, contributing to proposals and statements of work
• Lead the technical onboarding of new clients: discovery, health check, remediation plan and transition into managed service.
• Plan and lead database installations, upgrades, patching, migrations, refreshes, and decommissioning following controlled change management
• Participate in an on-call rota to support a 24/7 managed service.

Primary Technical Skills

The ideal candidate will have gained the majority of the following skills.

• Substantial hands-on SQL Server administration experience across multiple versions (2012 through to current releases)
• Deep working knowledge of high availability and disaster recovery: Always On Availability Groups, Windows Failover Clustering, FCIs, log shipping and replication
• Strong backup and recovery expertise, including backup to URL/blob storage, point-in-time recovery and full restore testing.
• Experience configuring and troubleshooting Transactional Replication
• Solid understanding of networking, Windows Server operating systems, and core infrastructure services such as Active Directory and DNS.
• Demonstrable performance tuning ability: execution plan analysis, wait statistics, Query Store, indexing strategy, statistics and query rewriting.
• Strong security administration experience, including authentication models, permissions, Transparent Data Encryption (TDE), Always Encrypted, auditing, and vulnerability remediation.
• Expertise in scripting and automation using PowerShell and T-SQL.
• Experience with an enterprise monitoring platform such as Redgate SQL Monitor, SolarWinds SQL Sentry, Datadog or equivalent.
• Exposure to Microsoft Azure, including Azure SQL, IaaS, or hybrid environments

Desirable Skills

Experience In The Following Areas Would Be Beneficial

• Experience working within an MSP, consultancy, or other multi-client environment, including the ability to manage competing priorities
• Experience supporting data warehousing, reporting, or business intelligence environments.
• Administration of SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS).
• Exposure to other database platforms and technologies, including PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and AWS database services.

Benefits / Perks

• Time Off: 25 days annual leave + public holidays
• Birthday Leave: One extra day off to celebrate
• Company Pension Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for wellbeing support
• EkcOlympics: Global team activity challenges
• Unlimited access to Pluralsight for continuous development
• Real opportunities to grow, including international progression

Why Ekco

• Company of the year 2026 Tech Excellence Awards
• Microsoft’s 2023 Rising Star Security Partner of the Year
• First Irish Microsoft MSP to achieve all four Microsoft Security Specializations
• A culture rooted in diversity, equality, inclusion & belonging
• A commitment to internal mobility and career progression
• Flexible, family-friendly working at the heart of our culture
• Proud to be your trusted security-first Managed Service Provider chosen by IT leaders to drive operational efficiency, scale smarter and stay ahead of risk.