IT Support Specialist

Start Date: Early July

Initial Duration: 40 Days, 3 days a week, with scope to extend

Time commitment: Estimated up to approximately 24 hours per week (based on delivery needs) 

Rate: £32 per hour (freelance billing rate)

Help us keep the systems our people rely on every day well-managed, secure and auditable, so colleagues across Oak can do their best work.

Oak National Academy is a fully remote organisation with over 100 employees and up to 200 freelancers and partners who depend on our systems every day. We are looking to engage an experienced freelance IT Support Specialist to deliver a defined programme of access management, systems administration and compliance work as we grow. The focus of this engagement is to ensure our core systems are well-managed, auditable and secure, and that staff and freelancers are well supported in their day-to-day use of them. The appointed freelancer will bring their own expertise and approach to shape how this work is delivered, working to agreed priorities and timelines, and collaborating closely with Oak colleagues. This is a remote role, carried out on an Oak-managed device.

Scope of work

The freelancer will be responsible for delivering the following outcomes:

● Provision of first-line and second-line support across agreed IT workflows, ensuring requests are resolved efficiently and appropriately escalated where required. 

● Monitoring and managing our MDM for hardware and software alerts. 

● Delivering agreed access, provisioning and deprovisioning activities associated with onboarding and offboarding processes.

● Hardware and software troubleshooting across the organisation. 

● Monitoring and managing Google Admin alerts. 

● Effective day-to-day administration of access and permissions across Oak's core systems. 

● Collaborating with the IT & Data Security Officer on IT operations projects.

Experience and expertise

We are interested in hearing from freelancers who can demonstrate:

● 3+ years' experience in IT systems or infrastructure roles, where systems administration, access management and security were a core part of the work. 

● Strong, hands-on expertise in Google Workspace Admin, including user management, groups, permissions and security settings. 

● Experience using MDM platforms and remote support tools. 

● A careful, trustworthy and improvement-focused approach, with a strong appreciation of security, accountability and collaborative working.

● The ability to work independently and take ownership of delivering agreed outcomes. 

● Confidence working within a small, remote team and collaborating effectively with colleagues.

● Google Workspace Admin certification is desirable but not required. We are most interested in practical experience and how you approach the work, so formal certifications are not essential to apply.

Tools and access

We will give you access to all the systems you need to carry out the work. The core tools you will be working with are Google Admin and the Google Suite, NinjaOne, Slack, Notion, 1Password and NordLayer.

We will provide an Oak-managed device (Windows and macOS) for the duration of the engagement. Given the level of system access this role involves, we require all work to be carried out on this device. We will handle device setup and system access before you start, so you are ready to go from day one.

Ways of working

This engagement is offered on a self-employed basis. You will work closely with the IT & Data Security Officer to ensure alignment, share progress, and agree priorities throughout the engagement period. 

Next steps

You'll answer some questions -  some short ones relating to admin and then four discipline-related ones. After the task closes, your answers will go through our sifting process: all answers will be anonymised, randomised and then reviewed by a panel of reviewers. If shortlisted, we'll invite you to a remote interview over Zoom.

We're receiving a strong response to our freelancer adverts, which may lead us to close the role early so if you're considering applying, please get your application in early to avoid missing out.