Disaster Recovery Manager

Job Title: IT Disaster Recovery Manager

Location: Manchester (Hybrid), 2 Days Onsite a week

Day Rate: £550 Outside IR35

Job Type: 6 Months Contract

Role overview: We’re looking for an experienced and delivery-focused Disaster Recovery (DR) specialist to help establish and embed a fit-for-purpose DR capability across our business. This is an interim contract role to assess where we are today, mature our capabilities where required, and develop clear, documented disaster recovery plans for the future. There is currently no formal DR strategy or framework in place. The successful candidate will be responsible for building this capability from the ground up – engaging with stakeholders across the business and technology, identifying gaps, documenting policies and procedures, and establishing a governance model that can be owned and run internally after handover. You will play a critical role in reducing business risk and improving resilience across our infrastructure and applications. This is a hands-on, fast-paced role suited to a contractor who is comfortable driving outcomes, influencing across teams, and rolling up their sleeves to make things happen.

Responsibilities

• Assess the current DR posture across our core systems, infrastructure, applications, and business services.
• Identify risk areas and gaps against best practices, regulatory expectations, and business needs.
• Engage with senior business stakeholders to define RTO/RPO objectives and system tiering.
• Define and document a fit-for-purpose DR strategy and supporting invocation framework.
• Produce a complete suite of DR documentation, including: Invocation procedures and recovery workflows, Runbooks and technical recovery plans, Communications templates, Escalation paths and contact trees, Testing and review schedules.
• Design and implement a DR governance model, including a RACI matrix and process ownership.
• Run tabletop and practical DR test exercises to validate plans and readiness.
• Deliver training and knowledge transfer to internal teams for BAU ownership.
• Provide a clear and actionable roadmap for ongoing DR maturity.
• Ensure the Disaster Recovery strategy and all associated plans are secure by design, embedding appropriate access controls, data protection measures, and alignment with industry-recognised security standards (e.g. ISO 27001, NIST, CIS).
• Collaborate with the Information Security and Compliance teams to ensure DR aligns with the broader cybersecurity strategy and meets regulatory expectations.

Experience and Skills

Essential:

• Proven experience leading Disaster Recovery strategy, documentation, and implementation within enterprise-scale organisations.
• Hands-on expertise in building DR runbooks, governance frameworks, and recovery plans.
• Strong understanding of modern infrastructure and recovery methods, including hybrid cloud, backups, and virtualisation.
• Familiarity with business impact analysis and prioritisation of systems based on criticality.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, including the ability to work across technical and non-technical teams.
• Experience running DR test scenarios, identifying issues, and refining documentation.
• Strong documentation and communication skills – able to produce professional, handover-ready assets.
• Comfortable working independently in a delivery-focused, time-bound contractor role.

Desirable:

• Experience in the gambling sector or other regulated industries.
• Knowledge of relevant compliance frameworks (e.g. ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, Gambling Commission).
• Familiarity with business continuity frameworks and their relationship to DR.
• Exposure to tools like Cohesity, Veeam, Zerto, Azure Site Recovery, or equivalent.

Qualifications

Relevant certifications (e.g. CBCI, ISO 22301, ITIL, or cloud/infra certifications) are beneficial but not essential.