SQL DBA Team Lead

Ekco; Milton Keynes; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Time Off 25 days + holidays

Birthday Leave

Company Pension Scheme

EAP for wellbeing

EkcOlympics: team challenges

Pluralsight access

International progression

Job summary

Ekco is seeking an experienced SQL Server DBA to lead its Managed SQL Service. You will be the technical authority, ensuring high availability, security, and compliant operations across client estates.

You will mentor DBAs, manage workloads, and spearhead deployments, migrations, and performance tuning while supporting on-call rotations and presales activities.

Qualifications

• Substantial hands-on SQL Server administration across versions 2012 to current releases.
• Deep knowledge of high availability and disaster recovery: Always On AGs, Failover Clustering, log shipping, replication.
• Strong backup and recovery expertise, including backup to URL/blob storage and point-in-time restores.
• Experience configuring and troubleshooting Transactional Replication.
• Solid understanding of networking, Windows Server OS, and core infrastructure services.
• Performance tuning: execution plans, wait stats, Query Store, indexing, statistics, and query rewriting.
• Security administration: authentication models, permissions, TDE, Always Encrypted, auditing, vulnerability remediation.
• Scripting and automation using PowerShell and T-SQL.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring platforms (SQL Monitor, Sentry, Datadog) or equivalents.
• Exposure to Azure, including Azure SQL, IaaS, or hybrid environments.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to other DBAs and engineers within the Managed SQL Service team.
• Ensure contracted SLAs and service commitments are met and raise flags when at risk.
• Manage team workload, balancing reactive tickets with planned work and projects.
• Maintain accurate documentation, runbooks, and configuration records for every client.
• Proactive health checks, capacity planning, and performance baselining across estates.
• Present findings, risks, and recommendations to client stakeholders during reviews.
• Support presales: scope database work, sizing efforts, contribute to proposals and SOWs.
• Lead onboarding of new clients: discovery, health check, remediation plan, transition to managed service.
• Plan and lead installations, upgrades, patching, migrations, and decommissioning with change control.
• Participate in an on-call rota for 24/7 managed service.

Skills

SQL Server

HA/DR

Backups & Restore

Performance Tuning

Security & Compliance

PowerShell

T-SQL

Replication

Tools

SQL Monitor

SolarWinds

Datadog

Azure SQL

SSIS/SSRS

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.

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.

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

• 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 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.