Matt Girdlestone

Matt Girdlestone, Acting Deputy Head of ICT

Do you enjoy helping others? Do you want to develop your IT skills?  

Would you like to work for an organisation that deeply cares about employees and communities? 

Technology pulsates through policing like a heartbeat. Behind every 999 call, every visit to a police station, through every interaction, technology drives information and communication around our service.  

When people call for our help, our job is to get there quickly. From the moment a 999 call is received IT Services power the process ensuring that electronic logs are created and police officers and police staff are dispatched through radio services within seconds.  

When police officers and police staff arrive at a scene, technology provides colleagues with the functionality they need, ensuring that they have access to laptops, phones and applications to help address threat, harm, risk, vulnerability and capture evidence.  

Indeed, beyond emergency calls, Wiltshire Police utilise over 170 IT applications. These services provide all of our departments with innovative and essential capabilities, ensuring that Wiltshire Police and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) can complete key tasks. These range from processing a firearms application form to the analysis of Intelligence.  

Whilst our technology is impressive, it actually means nothing without people. Servers, networks, hardware, cameras and equipment are just “things”, unless they are adapted, moulded and maintained by people. The true power of our IT in Wiltshire Police is not the “things”, it’s the passion, the dedication and the commitment of colleagues within our IT team to transform “things” into deliverables.  

Our IT Service is relatively new having been created in 2020 following a split from a partner organisation. Colleagues within the IT Department bring a range of experiences and since conception we have maintained a retention rate of over 85%. This is a true reflection of how great it is to work for Wiltshire Police and within IT.  

Alongside immense job satisfaction, Wiltshire Police cares about its employees. We offer fantastic agile working, and our department is committed to providing the best possible work/life balance. You have the opportunity within Wiltshire Police for real job security, progression, and development, complimented by a good pension and annual leave entitlement.  

As a service, we want to do more. We want to enhance our cyber security, exploit further our range of Microsoft products, and develop our network and telephone services.  

We want to compliment our brilliant engineers who deliver outcomes both in the field and behind the scenes. Be under no illusion, every laptop and phone that is built, every megabyte that traverses our network, every new application that is installed and updated is ultimately done so in order to help others and save lives.  

I started working for Wiltshire Police back in 2008 as a call handler. Over the last 14 years I have undertaken roles answering 999 calls, analysed data within our Intelligence Department, led delivery of Community Policing commands, implemented change as a Programme Manager and delivered IT services as an Operations Manager.  

Whilst this sounds like a cliché, I have stayed with Wiltshire Police because I get to work with Heroes. Whether they wear body armour and run towards danger, support vulnerable victims through investigations, or recover our network following an unexpected outage. Everyone is pushing towards that one goal of providing a better life for the communities in Wiltshire. 

The question is, can you be our next hero? Come and join us and really make a difference.  

For more information, please visit: www.wiltshire.police.uk/careers