Head of IT Service Management - Edinburgh
hace 18 horas
Edinburgh
About the job Job summary Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC. Visit our YouTube channel to watch the full series and come and discover your potential. Have you got the skills and experience to set the vision and direction for IT Service Management within a large, complex organisation? HMRC is one of the largest and most dynamic IT environments in Europe and plays a critical role in supporting the UK's financial and corporate infrastructure. We are seeking a Head of IT Service Management to lead live service delivery across Finance & Corporate Services, ensuring services are stable, resilient, and continuously improving. This is a senior role requiring strong operational judgement, credible leadership, and the ability to operate effectively in high‑impact live environments. Job description The Team The Finance & Corporate Services Live Service Team is responsible for ensuring the continuity and operational excellence of HMRC's most critical financial and corporate services. The team provides the live service wrapper for a portfolio including Debt Management, Banking, and Corporate Services. These services enable customers to make and receive payments, support the reconciliation of funds, and provide essential corporate platforms for HMRC colleagues, such as HR systems and internal services. The team comprises experienced Live Service Managers and Product professionals managing services touching on technology, operations, and business risk. The Role As Head of IT Service Management, you will be accountable for the stability, resilience, and recovery of business‑critical live services with significant financial, operational, and reputational impact. You will set the strategic direction for service management while remaining closely engaged with operational reality. The role requires you to lead services through periods of elevated risk, make complex judgement calls under pressure, and balance the introduction of change with the protection of live services. You will lead and develop teams, represent the IT Service Management function at senior forums, and act as a key escalation point for major incidents and stakeholder issues. Responsibilities You will: • Be accountable for the operational resilience of live services, ensuring they can withstand, respond to, and recover from incidents and change., • Lead and direct teams to deliver effective incident, problem, risk, and change management across the service lifecycle., • Act as a senior escalation point during major incidents, providing calm, clear leadership and decision making in high pressure situations., • Set and evolve service management strategy, influencing product, engineering, and commercial decisions to reduce systemic and operational risk., • Establish, manage, and assure SLAs and OLAs with internal teams and external suppliers., • Hold suppliers to account for service outcomes based on good management of contractual agreements as well as managing contractual compliance., • Balance the delivery of new functionality with the protection of existing services, making evidence based trade offs where priorities conflict., • Ensure service management frameworks (including ITIL) are applied pragmatically to improve outcomes., • Maintain effective service asset and configuration management, ensuring reliable data supports operational decision making., • Drive continuous service improvement using insight, metrics, and learning from incidents and service performance., • Build an intelligent mindset within the team with a focus on improving internal capability, knowledge and documentation., • Strong operational judgement and the confidence to make time-critical, difficult decisions with incomplete information., • Experience leading and developing managers and senior practitioners, not just task delivery., • Excellent communication skills and the ability to maintain authority and clarity during incidents and periods of high operational risk., • Substantial experience across the systems development lifecycle with a strong focus on live service management., • Practical experience of leading and managing major incidents with significant business impact., • Broad understanding of IT concepts, architectures, and live service operations., • Strong understanding of operational risk, service resilience, and recovery., • ITIL v4 certification (or willingness to work towards)., • Benton Park View, Newcastle - moving to Pilgrims Quarter, Newcastle, • Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary., • Family friendly policies., • Personal support., • A name-blind CV including your job history, qualifications and previous experiences. Your job history should include up to your last 5 roles and you should include your previous skills and experience, • UK nationals, • nationals of the Republic of Ireland, • nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK, • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window), • nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS), • individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020