Life outside of work

Ask Oscar what he does in his spare time and you quickly realise IT isn’t just a job, it follows him home. Helping friends and family with home tech setups, connectivity improvements, and tech recommendations.

When he’s not doing that, he’s exercising, partly for the discipline, partly because, as he puts it, “it’s less guilt so you can enjoy more food.” Food is a genuine passion. His idea of a good weekend involves finding somewhere new to eat in Manchester and working backwards from there.

“Outside of that tech mindset, it would be exercise. Outside of exercise will be travelling, mostly with the objective of food and coffee. That’s my plan for the weekend.”

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Before Dataspire

Oscar’s route into IT wasn’t traditional. He spent two years studying Interior Design at Manchester Metropolitan University before deciding his real interest was technology and problem-solving.

He pivoted, taking an IT support and onsite engineering role in Manchester city centre, picking up hands-on experience in service desk operations, network deployments, and infrastructure work. He then completed a three-month full-time IT support programme with Generation UK, building practical skills in modern IT operations.

That combination of hands-on experience and structured learning brought him into a QA apprenticeship pathway and ultimately to Dataspire.

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Four Roles, One Direction.

Oscar joined as a Service Desk Analyst Apprentice triaging tickets, managing accounts, troubleshooting IT issues, and learning how IT support works inside a live MSP environment.

“It was a December start, so the office was fairly quiet, which actually made onboarding easier. It gave me time to settle in, learn the systems properly, and understand how the business operated.”

From there, his progression reflected growing technical capability and increasing ownership at each stage:

⬇️ Service Desk Analyst Apprentice:
Day-to-day IT support across school environments, building core technical foundations.

⬇️ Service Desk Analyst:
Greater responsibility across Microsoft cloud technologies, endpoint support, and infrastructure troubleshooting.

⬇️ 2nd Line IT Operations Analyst:
Complex escalations, remote support for onsite engineers, and deeper involvement in Intune, Entra identity management, security, and operational improvement projects.

⬇️ Associate Systems Operations Engineer:
Operational reliability, cloud operations, security monitoring, and continuous improvement across multiple platforms.

“ I tried everything in the first year or so, then narrowed down to where I wanted to go. When I was given the opportunity to pilot a project linked to Cyber Essentials that gave me ownership. That’s when I saw the green light.”

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The Hardest Part

Oscar is honest about where the pressure came from. Not the technical complexity, it was time management.

Balancing project ownership alongside a busy service desk role, each with their own deadlines and SLAs, required a discipline he had to develop on the job. His instinct was always to get it right over getting it done fast.

“There’s no point rushing things and then having issues further down the line. I’d rather it be pinpoint accurate, start to finish.”

His move into Systems Operations removed that tension entirely. He’s now fully focused on the operational side of the business, a deliberate shift, and one he was ready for.

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The Role: Associate Systems Operations Engineer

The Associate Systems Operations Engineer function is relatively new at Dataspire. Oscar is one of the first people in it, helping define what the role looks like as it develops.

His work covers proactive monitoring, endpoint security through Microsoft Defender, identity and access management, and refining cloud configurations to meet evolving security standards. He works across teams to balance security with usability, testing and introducing improvements that make the environment better without making people’s lives harder.

Oscar’s role spans both sides of the equation – maintaining operational stability while actively researching and implementing Microsoft Modern Workplace solutions, the suite of tools that defines how modern organisations manage devices, identities, and security in a cloud-first world. The goal is an environment that is secure, consistent, and continuously improving.

“This role is new to Dataspire. I’m proud to be part of this team. There’s nothing to compare it to, no standard to just meet. So the only option is to build something worth comparing to.“

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Working for Schools

Oscar admits he never expected to find himself working in the education sector of IT. But the longer he’s been at Dataspire, the more it means to him.

“If a system just stopped working, a server, the internet, anything, that affects staff, students, and sometimes even parents who can’t reach the school. If you can keep IT operational, you know there’ll be no issues for any of them. You make a positive impact.”

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Oscar’s Advice on Apprenticeships

“ If you’re thinking about an apprenticeship, do it. You’re learning by doing, not just reading about it. Everything is mapped out for you, the progression is there, you just have to put the work in. It’s not for everyone, and if you prefer theory over practice it might not click. But if you want to build something real? It’s hard to beat.”

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