Unified Communications Engineer

Salary: £50,000 - £60,000 per annum

Employment type: Permanent

Hours per week: 37

Reporting into: Head of IT Operations

Department: IT

About Arden University

We are an aspirational and multi-award-winning university, delivering rapid growth with ambitious plans to disrupt the HE sector through our passion for innovation and digital education. Our vision is to become the first-choice university for career focused lifelong learners worldwide, ensuring that everyone, everywhere can access higher education.

About our Department

This Unified Communications Engineer role sits within the IT Infrastructure team as part of the wider IT Department. The team is responsible for the design, development and support of the organisation's IT Infrastructure.

The wider IT team is made up of around 60 employees with a vast range of skills from Software Development to IT Operations and IT Security. Our IT Department values employee development and we have lots of great examples of employee progression and promotions within the team.

About the Opportunity

As a Unified Communications (UC) Engineer at Arden University, you will play a pivotal role in delivering and enhancing the communication technologies that support our students, academics, and professional services teams across multiple campuses and digital learning environments.

You will be responsible for the design, support, maintenance, and continuous improvement of the University's unified communications platforms, including Microsoft Teams, Teams Phone with Azure Session Border Controller (SBC) integration, synchronous video technologies for teaching and learning, and emerging omni channel communication services. Working closely with IT and business stakeholders, you will ensure these platforms remain secure, reliable, scalable, and aligned with the University's strategic objectives.

The role combines technical expertise with a service focused approach, ensuring seamless collaboration, communication, and engagement across the organisation. You will also contribute to the ongoing development of the underlying network infrastructure that supports these critical services, helping to deliver an exceptional digital experience for both colleagues and students.

Reporting to the Head of IT Operations, this is an exciting opportunity to shape the future of communications technology within a modern, innovative university committed to flexible and accessible education.

About You Essential Skills / Experience

• Supporting Microsoft Teams, Teams Phone, Direct Routing, and enterprise voice solutions.
• Administration of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD).
• Strong knowledge of unified communications technologies, including VoIP, SIP signalling, RTP/SRTP media flows, and real time communications.
• Management of PSTN connectivity, dial plans, call routing, number management, and voice service configuration.
• Working with Session Border Controllers (SBCs) and telephony integrations.
• Diagnosing, troubleshooting, and resolving complex voice, video, and real time communication issues.
• Incident management, service restoration, problem management, and root cause analysis within communications environments.
• Strong understanding of Microsoft Teams architecture, Teams Phone configuration, cloud voice workloads, and connectivity models.
• Interpreting call quality analytics, telemetry, QoS metrics, and service performance data.
• Strong understanding of networking principles relevant to unified communications, including QoS/DSCP, bandwidth management, latency, jitter, packet loss, VLANs, and MOS scoring.
• Knowledge of firewall and NAT behaviour, network path analysis, and port and protocol requirements for real time communications.
• Collaboration with network teams to resolve end to end performance and connectivity issues.
• Working with telecommunications providers, platform vendors, and third party partners to resolve complex technical issues.
• Administration and support of conferencing and collaboration platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
• PowerShell scripting and automation skills.

Why Arden

At Arden, you will become part of a passionate and dedicated team committed to removing unnecessary barriers to learning and making education more accessible. Employees benefit from:

• 30 days holiday + bank holidays on top, and a Christmas closure.
• A generous Aviva pension plan, company contributions starting from 7%.
• BUPA Cash Plan.
• Private Medical Insurance coverage (applies to certain job roles).
• Access to Perkbox benefits.
• Study any Arden course for free, with a discount for all family and friends.
• Additional per benefits.
• Our 'Golden Ticket' which allows you to gift anyone in your life a free Arden education.

Our Values

Stand out, Progressive, Accessible, Resourceful, Kindness reflect who we are as an institution, a team and as individuals. We want to hear from those who share these values and are excited by the chance to be the driving, creative force within a growing business.

Closing Date

16th June (Midnight)

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Arden University is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. This means that if you have a disability, as defined by the Disability Equality Act 2010, you may be guaranteed an interview if you meet the essential criteria for the role. If you wish to be considered under this scheme, you can indicate via the application form below and consent for this information to be shared with the hiring team. For more details on what qualifies as a disability under the Disability Equality Act 2010, please refer to the guidance here.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer we celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We ensure that our recruitment and selection processes never discriminate based upon age, disability, gender, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or other personal circumstances, and actively welcome applications from all groups.

Sponsorship Statement

Please be aware that some roles may not meet the points requirement for a Sponsored Skilled Worker visa, or fulfil the criteria we have for providing sponsorship. However we welcome applications from candidates who do not currently have the right to work in the UK but may be eligible for a visa through an alternative route.