IT Support Engineer (1st / 2nd Line)

Shoosmiths - UK Law Firm of the Year Winner at the Legal Week British Legal Awards 2015.

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

Shoosmiths are currently undergoing an exciting period of development and investment in the IT infrastructure, with 40 live projects currently underway to transform business processes and increase efficiency firm-wide. As these developments and implementations continue, we are looking for talented individuals who are passionate about delivering excellent service who want to proactively contribute to the continued success of Shoosmiths.

The team are looking for an IT Support Engineer to join a nationwide team of 6 IT Support Engineers who are responsible for providing 1st & 2nd line support through direct business contact via site support and remote support via the Service Desk, ensuring the highest level of support and coaching to end users.

As an IT Support Engineer, your remit will cover the Southern offices which will include Reading, Basingstoke, Southampton and London. 

Your responsibilities will be to look after our Reading, Basingstoke, Southampton and London offices through on-site support and remotely via the Service Desk, predominately dealing with both 1st and 2nd line support queries.  You will be accountable for the management of issues through the whole process until resolution, involving internal or external third line support teams where necessary.

Working across the offices, you will be given the opportunity to engage with a range of stakeholders across legal and business support teams, liaising with department experts for detailed application fault diagnosis and scheduled upgrades. Furthermore, you will maintain and develop the equipment register of IT hardware and software for the whole firm and work with the Infrastructure Team to assist with the operation of the Technology Lab, providing a secure and robust testing environment for testing new applications and systems.

Your responsibilities will be broken down accordingly:

• (80%) Provide first and second line support via on-site attendance, in response to business requests.
• (15%) To provide cover for the Service Desk in peak times as required.
• (5%) Other tasks as appropriate.

The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 2 years’ experience working in a 1st & 2nd line support role across multiple sites, with extensive knowledge of service desk environments. You will be qualified at ITIL foundation level or above and preferably hold additional professional qualifications such as MCP or MOUS certification.

In addition, you will have the ability to deal with customers at all levels through an approachable and customer focused awareness and with the confidence and professionalism to communicate across multiple functions and teams. You will also be a methodical and accurate worker, who can manage the full life-cycle of incidents through to completion and also possess an analytical and inquisitive mind to identify improvements to improve future service.

Essential skills & qualifications:

• Minimum of 2 years’ IT support experience in a service industry with experience of providing support across multiple sites.
• Qualified at ITIL foundation level or above.
• Equivalent and preferably some professional qualification such as MCP or MOUS certification.
• Familiarity with LAN (and WAN) technologies.
• Some experience of dealing with telecommunication systems.
• Has had exposure to working to tight SLA’s & KPI’s.
• Able to use own initiative to resolve problems while working under pressure.
• Able to produce work to regular deadlines.
• Able to understand business drivers and priorities.
• A minimum of 5 GCSEs with grades A-C including Maths & English.
• Good understanding of IT systems and infrastructure.
• Experience of providing support across multiple sites
• A self starter who is determined to succeed but can also work well in a team environment.

Preferred skills & qualifications:

• Formalised customer service training.
• Presentation skills
• Has had exposure working with OLA’s.
• Good A Levels/BTEC or above
• Microsoft Product Certified / A + Certification
• Experience in a law firm, professional services firm or other service sector industry.

You may also have experience in the following: 2nd Line Support Analyst, IT Support Engineer, IT Support Technician, 1st/2nd Line IT Helpdesk, IT Field Engineer, 1st/2nd Line Support Engineer, Desktop Support Analyst.  

Additional details

The ability to work on a rota basis between the hours of 8:00am & 6:00pm. However, it is essential that the Support Analyst can work flexible or extended hours to complete some tasks outside of core business hours of 08:00 to 18:00.

Travel to other Shoosmiths offices will be necessary.

Benefits package 

Shoosmiths has an outstanding benefits package; we believe that all staff should be rewarded for their commitment to the continued success of the firm. These include:

• A pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5.5%
• Generous life assurance cover for peace of mind, up to 8 times salary
• Up to 23 paid working days holiday per annum with the option to buy up to 8 additional days. You can choose to 'flex' twice a year - January and July
• 'Happy Birthday!' - have a free day off to celebrate and a £50 voucher to spend! (We won't take it from your annual entitlement)
• Childcare vouchers which are not subject to tax or NI
• Interest free season ticket loans
• Staff introduction bonus scheme
• Corporate discounts on a wide variety of products and services
• Discounted conveyancing and legal advice, for instance for wills and family trusts

If you'd like to enquire about the salary, please feel free to get in touch with me via matthew.mercer@shoosmiths.co.uk or 03700 863 267. 

The application process

We will aim to respond to you within 3-4 working days following your application. If successful, you will be contacted by a member of our recruitment team for an informal telephone discussion. There will be two interview stages which will be held at our Reading office. 

Interested but have further questions? Get in touch with me directly via email (matthew.mercer@shoosmiths.co.uk), phone (03700 863 267) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-mercer-91811a25). 

Background checks

Due to the nature of the work undertaken, confirmation of employment will be subject to a variety of checks which will be carried out once an offer of employment is accepted.  These checks will include employment references covering the last 5 years, proof of ID, proof of address covering the last 5 years, Personnel Vetting credit search (which will only highlight insolvency or County Court Judgments - should any adverse data show on the Personnel Vetting search then any offer of employment made will be withdrawn).Terrorism Check (against data supplied by the Bank of England) and a DBS check previously known as a Criminal Records check.

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.