Service Operations Manager

Role overview

Service operations and incidents

• Own the performance, availability, and operational health of live services.
• Oversee incidents, problems, risks, dependencies, service performance, priorities, resources, and support activities.
• Lead responses to major incidents and service disruption; serve as senior escalation point for serious and out-of-hours issues.
• Ensure effective communication, recovery, review, and completion of incident follow-up actions.

Readiness and improvement

• Ensure services are supportable, monitored, documented, and resourced before entering business-as-usual operations.
• Represent operational needs in projects, change, and organisational initiatives.
• Drive measurable improvements using incident, service-performance, risk, and user-feedback evidence.
• Promote automation, efficiency, and reduction of recurring operational issues and service requests.

Leadership and governance

• Lead and develop the Service Operations team and coordinate its daily workflow.
• Recruit, interview, hire, and train staff; provide one-to-ones and performance evaluations; handle discipline and termination in accordance with company policy.
• Build relationships with stakeholders, suppliers, and partners, and hold third parties accountable for effects on service performance or user experience.
• Report on service performance, trends, risks, blockers, and decisions; maintain effective operational governance and controls.
• Support financial planning, resource forecasting, and operational decisions.

Experience and knowledge

• Demonstrable experience with ITSM toolsets such as ServiceNow, Freshservice, or Jira.
• Proven stakeholder management experience or a related skill such as customer service.
• ITIL v4 Foundation certification at minimum.
• Good technical understanding of platforms and tools, including common issues.
• Good understanding of common SQL queries and ability to identify anomalies.
• Previous experience managing a multi-disciplined operational team.

Capabilities

• Strong critical thinking and decision-making, and ability to adapt processes to a methodology such as ITIL.
• Strong written and verbal communication, including explaining technical information to non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work independently and maintain high standards without direct supervision.
• Familiarity with working across disciplines within the public sector is welcomed.

Working arrangements

• Remote role with some national travel required to attend meetings.

Salary

• Salary starts at £60,000 per annum.

Vetting

• Applicants must be eligible to undergo NPPV3 and SC vetting clearances.