Application Specialist – Aareon QL & SQL
Location: Manchester
Salary: £40,000 per annum
Employment Type: Permanent
Working Pattern: Full Time
About the Role
We are looking for an experienced Application Specialist to join the IT team of a leading housing organisation in Manchester.
This is a hands-on application support role focused on maintaining and improving a range of critical business applications, including core housing systems, mobile solutions, digital applications and online services.
Aareon QL and SQL experience are essential. Candidates must have proven, hands-on experience working with Aareon QL, with a strong understanding of its functionality, underlying processes and day-to-day operation. You must also have practical SQL experience, including querying, analysing and managing data.
Candidates will be expected to demonstrate clear evidence of their proficiency in both Aareon QL and SQL.
Key Responsibilities
- Provide support and maintenance for core business applications, including housing management systems, mobile solutions, digital applications and online services.
- Provide 2nd line application support, incident resolution, troubleshooting and problem management.
- Take ownership of technical issues and proactively resolve problems to restore services within agreed timescales.
- Identify recurring issues and contribute to application improvements and service enhancements.
- Manage application patching, upgrades and lifecycle maintenance, including deployment, testing and release management.
- Configure and maintain business applications, including fields, workflows, parameters and other system functionality.
- Use SQL to query, analyse and manage application data, supporting investigation, reporting and issue resolution.
- Monitor application performance, availability, capacity, security and overall health.
- Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, technical documentation and knowledgebase articles.
- Support change, release, incident, problem, capacity and availability management processes.
- Work closely with internal IT teams, users, third-party suppliers and application vendors.
- Monitor support requests and ensure users and stakeholders receive clear and timely updates.
- Provide guidance and training to users and operational teams where required.
- Maintain the security, confidentiality and integrity of business information and systems.
- Look for opportunities to automate routine application monitoring and support processes.
Essential Experience & Skills
- Proven hands-on experience with Aareon QL – essential.
- Strong practical SQL experience – essential.
- In-depth understanding of Aareon QL functionality, processes and day-to-day operation.
- Experience using SQL for querying, analysing and managing data.
- Experience supporting and maintaining business-critical applications.
- Experience working with housing management systems and related applications.
- Experience providing 2nd line application support and resolving complex technical issues.
- Experience working with relational databases.
- Experience managing application releases, patches, upgrades and system changes.
- Experience working with third-party application support providers and software vendors.
- Good understanding of IT infrastructure, databases, operating systems and networks.
- Awareness of information security threats, controls and mitigations.
- Understanding of ITIL principles, particularly incident, problem, change, release, availability and service management.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
- Ability to communicate technical issues clearly to non-technical users.
- Ability to prioritise workloads and work effectively under pressure.
The Ideal Candidate
We are looking for someone who is technically capable, analytical and comfortable taking ownership of application issues from investigation through to resolution.
You will ideally have experience within a housing association, local authority or social housing environment, with a strong understanding of housing management applications.
Most importantly, you must be able to demonstrate genuine, hands-on experience with both Aareon QL and SQL. This is not a role where general application support experience alone will be sufficient.
What’s on Offer
- £40,000 salary
- Permanent position
- Full-time opportunity based in Manchester
- Opportunity to work with critical housing and business applications
- Development and improvement-focused IT environment
- Role with significant responsibility for application performance, availability and continuous improvement
If you have strong Aareon QL and SQL experience and are looking for your next Application Specialist opportunity in Manchester, we would like to hear from you.
INDA
Pay: £40,000.00 per year
Work Location: In person
