Service Transition Manager in Cardiff

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Service Transition Manager to join the Digital, Data and Technology team at Companies House. This is a senior leadership role at the heart of our IT Services function, where you will play a key role in ensuring that new and changed digital services are introduced into live operation safely, smoothly and successfully. You will help shape how services are delivered and supported, balancing the pace of change with stability, resilience and a strong focus on user needs.

Leading a team of service management professionals, you will oversee critical areas such as change, incident and problem management, release management, configuration management, business relationship management, and our core service tooling. Working closely with delivery teams, service owners and operational colleagues, you will ensure that services are fully prepared for live use, well supported, and continuously improved.

As part of the IT Services Leadership Team, you will have the opportunity to influence how we deliver modern, reliable and user-focused digital services across Companies House, contributing to ongoing transformation and improvement of our technology services.

Companies House offers a flexible and welcoming culture that promotes a healthy work life balance as well as a proactive approach to wellbeing that allows us to be our best at work. We recognise that people are the key to our success so offer a fantastic benefits package including flexible working with no core hours, 30 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays and 1 privilege day as well as enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme with a contribution rate averaging 28%.

Please note: Companies House cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. Security Clearance is an essential requirement for this campaign. You'll need to have been in the UK for at least 3 out of the last 5 years to be eligible to apply for SC.

As a Service Transition Manager, you will:

• Build strong working relationships across IT Services, operational teams and a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, ensuring they are kept informed of service changes, risks and issues.
• Work with technical specialists across the Digital team, providing clear direction, challenge and assurance to ensure services are delivered safely and effectively.

Key responsibilities include:

• Leading the Service Management function, coordinating activity across change, incident, problem, release, configuration and business relationship management, supported by service management tooling.
• Leading, managing and developing a team of service management professionals, supporting their growth and capability in line with recognised best practice frameworks.
• Overseeing the transition of new and updated services into live operation, ensuring robust governance, effective risk management, and full operational readiness prior to go-live.
• Acting as a senior escalation point for service issues and major incidents, particularly those linked to recent changes or releases.
• Ensuring change and release processes are effective, proportionate and aligned to organisational priorities, enabling the safe and timely delivery of change.
• Working closely with service owners, service managers and senior stakeholders to make informed decisions on service readiness, planned change and live service impact.
• Using data and performance insights to ensure service reporting is accurate, meaningful and supports organisational measures of service availability.
• Driving maturity across incident and problem management practices, reducing repeat issues and improving overall service stability.
• Ensuring asset and configuration management practices are efficient, reliable and support effective service delivery.
• Maintaining oversight of service management tooling, ensuring processes, reporting and data quality enable effective decision making.
• Leading post implementation and service transition reviews, capturing lessons learned and driving continuous improvement.
• Supporting the migration of services to cloud-based platforms, maintaining service performance and user confidence during periods of change.
• Playing an active role in the IT Services Leadership Team, promoting collaboration, inclusive ways of working, staff wellbeing and professional development.
• Leading the response to major incidents, ensuring effective coordination, clear communication and timely service recovery.

This role is part of a team that provides 24/7/365 support to the business. The nature of this post may occasionally require you to work overtime during the week and at weekends. There is the opportunity to take part in the duty manager on-call rota, for those who are interested and have sufficient experience.

We are looking for someone who can demonstrate the following skills and experience, which will be assessed during the selection process:

• Proven leadership capability with a strong understanding of IT services and technologies.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to influence, challenge and collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.
• A collaborative and inclusive approach with ability to manage, motivate and develop diverse teams, creating an inclusive and high-performing culture.
• A strong understanding of service management best practice (such as ITIL), with proven experience applying this effectively within a service support environment.
• Experience using data to analyse service performance and drive improvements in service quality, resilience and user outcomes.
• Confident decision-making skills, with a clear focus on accountability, outcomes and delivering high-quality, user-focused services.
• Experience contributing to audits, service assurance reviews or governance activities.
• Proficient in Microsoft 365 tools, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint and Power BI.
• Experience of using service management tools such as ServiceNow, or similar platforms, and Jira, Confluence or other collaboration software.
• Aware of enterprise digital platforms, cloud technologies and modern delivery practices, including agile, DevOps and continuous improvement approaches.
• Aware of common enterprise technologies such as Oracle, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft platforms and Linux/Unix environments.

ITIL Foundation qualification (or equivalent), or willingness to complete this in the 1st year after starting.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Good understanding of core IT infrastructure, including end-user devices, networks, servers, databases and storage (presentation at interview).

Alongside your salary of £53,540, Companies House contributes £15,510 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. We believe that our success is driven by the well-being and satisfaction of our team members at all levels of the organisation. At Companies House we're committed to providing a comprehensive benefits package that goes beyond the ordinary, ensuring your career journey with us is not only fulfilling, but also rewarding. We pride ourselves on offering a quality work-life balance with our employee wellbeing being central to our working practices.

As an equal opportunity employer, we celebrate diversity, being committed to ensuring we're representative of the citizens we serve and creating an inclusive environment. Everyone in Companies House brings something different, and so will you. To fulfil our commitment to recruiting and attracting diverse talent we welcome applications from underrepresented groups. We also welcome applications from Welsh speakers.

We are proud to be a disability confident leader. Our recruitment process is fully inclusive and we can make adjustments as needed through our process. These could include having an interview buddy, extra time at interviews/assessments and receiving interview questions in advance, to name a few.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at application stage, or if you'd like to discuss any person-centred adjustments, please contact us by emailing.

You will be aligned to our Cardiff office, where you will be expected to attend on a regular basis. We are currently using a hybrid approach to the way we work which provides opportunities for you to be adaptable in the way you work so that you can achieve a healthy balance between your work and home life.