3rd Line Support Team Leader in London

About Doherty Associates

Doherty Associates (DA) have delivered IT solutions for over 30 years to world-renowned, international clients, primarily within the professional and financial services sectors. We are a Microsoft Solutions Partner with multiple designations, hold a Tier 1 Microsoft CSP relationship, and operate to ISO27001 & ISO9001 standards. Our services are built on the Microsoft cloud ecosystem and focused on delivering secure, high-quality, outcome-driven solutions for our clients.

Our customers rely on us to bring specialist expertise and innovation across cloud solutions, hybrid working, modern workplace, data and BI, cyber security, governance and compliance. We have built a reputation as a company that keeps its promises and delivers quality.

About the role

Reporting to the Managed Services Manager, the 3rd Line Team Leader leads the team responsible for advanced technical escalation, proactive engineering, technical service assurance and the operational transition of new clients and services into Managed Services.

The role combines people leadership, day-to-day operational control and strong hands-on technical oversight. It ensures complex incidents and problems are progressed with urgency, planned technical activities are delivered consistently, and the team works effectively across Managed Services and Professional Services as well as Service Delivery, Account Management and vendors.

The Team Leader is expected to remain technically credible and able to guide complex work, while succeeding primarily through clear priorities, coaching, quality control, effective delegation and strong cross-team coordination rather than acting as the default resolver for every escalation.

Responsibilities

Team leadership and capability

• Lead, coach and develop 3rd Line Support Engineers in UK and provide guidance to engineers in Malaysia, setting clear expectations for accountability, urgency, technical quality, collaboration and professional conduct.
• Run effective one-to-ones, objectives, performance reviews, probation reviews, development planning and regular feedback, addressing gaps promptly and fairly.
• Allocate work according to priority and capability, ensuring balanced workloads and appropriate leadership coverage.
• Create a culture in which engineers share knowledge, challenge constructively, document their work and support colleagues across Managed Services.

Operational control, escalations and major incidents

• Manage the 3rd Line queue and planned workload, including priority escalations, aged and reopened tickets, problem records, technical changes, proactive cadence activities and service-transition actions.
• Ensure escalations from 1st and 2nd Line are actioned promptly and identify opportunities for improvement are identified to drive shift left in support.
• Provide technical and management direction during complex incidents and major incidents, coordinating the right specialists and escalating material risk or cross-service impact to the Managed Services Manager.
• Assure root cause analysis, known-error records, remediation plans and post-incident learning, ensuring preventative actions are assigned and followed through.
• Review the quality of ticket notes, client updates, technical decisions and closure evidence, intervening where work does not meet the required standard.
• Manage team capacity and coverage, highlighting conflicts between reactive demand, planned work and proactive commitments before delivery is affected.

Proactive engineering and client environment improvement

• Plan and assure recurring technical health checks, baseline reviews, Microsoft 365 and Azure assessments, endpoint and infrastructure audits, configuration reviews and other agreed proactive services.
• Ensure activity is delivered to a consistent scope, frequency and evidence standard, with findings translated into proportionate, prioritised recommendations.
• Coordinate technical remediation with Service Delivery Managers, Account Managers, Professional Services, Managed Security and client stakeholders, with clear ownership and target dates.
• Use recurring incident themes, platform data and technical findings to identify risks, reduce failure demand and strengthen resilience, security and supportability.
• Identify opportunities to standardise or automate repeatable engineering activity and reduce dependency on manual effort or individual knowledge.

Service transition and change assurance

• Lead the 3rd Line contribution to onboarding new clients and transitioning new or changed services into Managed Services.
• Work with Professional Services, Project Managers and technical specialists to define support requirements and confirm that handover documentation, runbooks, monitoring, tooling, access, support boundaries and escalation routes are complete before go-live.
• Provide constructive operational challenge where a solution is not supportable, sufficiently documented or ready for transition, escalating unresolved risk to the Managed Services Manager.
• Coordinate early-life support and ensure transition issues, lessons and residual actions are captured and closed.
• Provide peer review and technical assurance for operational changes, ensuring implementation, validation, communication and rollback arrangements are proportionate to risk.
  

Cross-team dependencies and collaboration

• Partner with the Service Desk Team Leader to maintain clear escalation paths, improve escalation quality, return actionable learning to front-line teams and increase resolution at the earliest appropriate level.
• Coordinate with Field Engineering where remote diagnosis requires on-site activity, ensuring visit scope, technical context, records, handover and follow-up actions are clear.
• Work with Managed Security on security alerts, incidents, vulnerabilities and remediation actions that require infrastructure, identity, endpoint or Microsoft cloud engineering input.
• Work with Professional Services on project handover, service design, technical debt and operational readiness, while maintaining clear ownership between project delivery and live support.
• Provide Service Delivery Managers and Account Managers with clear technical input for service reviews, client improvement plans, escalations and proposals, translating technical risk into practical business impact.
• Engage Microsoft and third-party vendors when specialist support is required, retaining internal ownership of progress, evidence and client communication.
• Collaborate across UK and Kuala Lumpur service operations to support consistent standards, effective handovers and shared technical knowledge.
  

Client engagement and service quality

• Act as a credible technical and management escalation point for complex client issues, communicating clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ensure client updates explain ownership, impact, progress, risk, next actions and expected communication points without unnecessary technical language.
• Attend client meetings where advanced technical input, service assurance or explanation of findings is required.
• Support service recovery and improvement activity by providing evidence-based technical analysis and ensuring agreed engineering actions are completed.
• Maintain a strong focus on client experience while protecting technical quality, adherence to process and appropriate risk controls.
  
  

Knowledge, standards and continual improvement

• Own the quality and usability of 3rd Line runbooks, troubleshooting guides, known-error records, platform documentation and client-specific operating procedures.
• Ensure learning from incidents, problems, projects and audits is converted into reusable knowledge for the wider Managed Services function.
• Use service and technical data to identify recurring issues, bottlenecks, capability gaps and opportunities for automation or process improvement.
• Drive agreed continual improvement actions to completion and report measurable outcomes to the Managed Services Manager.
• Contribute practical technical insight to Managed Services standards, tooling and service roadmaps while operating within the direction set by the Managed Services Manager and Head of Managed Services.

Performance, reporting and governance

• Monitor and report on queue health, aged work, escalation volumes, problem themes, major incidents, workload, capacity, proactive activity completion, transition readiness and improvement actions.
• Provide concise management reporting that explains performance, root causes, risks, interventions and decisions required.
• Ensure the team follows agreed IT service management, change, security, quality and documentation controls.
• Support compliance with applicable company policies and standards, including ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Cyber Essentials Plus.
• Contribute to resource planning and use team capacity responsibly, balancing client commitments, operational risk, service quality and development needs.
  
  

Experience, skills and qualifications

Essential

• Proven experience leading or supervising senior infrastructure, cloud or 3rd Line engineers within an MSP or comparable multi-client IT services environment.
• Strong technical background across Microsoft 365, Azure, Entra ID, Intune, Windows Server, Active Directory and hybrid infrastructure, with sufficient breadth to guide complex investigations and challenge technical decisions.
• Practical experience of incident, major incident, problem, change, escalation and continual service improvement practices in an ITIL-aligned environment.
• Experience controlling a technical support queue and balancing complex reactive work with planned engineering, audits, changes and service-transition commitments.
• Demonstrable experience of root cause analysis, problem remediation, technical documentation and knowledge management.
  Experience of client onboarding, project-to-support transition and operational readiness assurance.
• Confident client-facing communication, including explaining technical risk and recovery activity to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Effective people-management and coaching capability, including objective setting, feedback, development planning and performance management.
• Ability to interpret operational and technical information, identify priorities and convert issues into clear actions with accountable owners.
• Experience with ITSM or PSA tooling such as ConnectWise Manage, together with monitoring, documentation and endpoint-management platforms.
• Excellent spoken and written English, including the ability to produce clear technical, incident and management reporting.
  

Desirable

• Relevant current Microsoft certification in Azure, Microsoft 365, security, identity or endpoint management.
• Experience supporting professional services, financial services, legal or other high-expectation and regulated clients.
• Experience of managed security or SOC interfaces, vulnerability remediation and security incident coordination.
• Experience designing or operating proactive technical cadence programmes, health checks or client environment assessments.
• Experience implementing automation, scripting, self-service or AI-enabled improvements within technical support operations.
• Knowledge of ISO 27001, ISO 9001 and Cyber Essentials Plus operating environments.
• Experience collaborating across onshore and offshore or multi-location service teams.

About the person

• Visible and credible leader: present, approachable and willing to step into complex situations while developing others to take ownership.
• Accountable: creates clarity, follows through and expects the same standard from the team.
• Calm under pressure: makes sound decisions and communicates clearly during incidents and escalations.
• Technically curious: maintains credibility, asks effective questions and encourages evidence-led diagnosis rather than assumption.
• Collaborative: connects teams and resolves hand-off issues without creating silos or protecting territory.
• Coaching-led: develops judgement and problem-solving capability rather than becoming the answer to every technical question.
• Customer-focused: understands the client impact of technical and operational decisions and sets a high standard for communication and care.
• Analytical and improvement-focused: turns recurring problems, service data and feedback into practical action.
• Organised and decisive: balances competing priorities, delegates effectively and escalates risk early.
• High integrity: handles sensitive client, security and people matters with discretion and sound judgement.
  

What we offer in return

• Basic salary plus performance bonus
• 34 days of annual leave (incl. 8 UK bank holidays and a day off on your birthday)
• Enhanced family-friendly benefit schemes including company sick pay
• Sponsored training and development and where applicable to the role, a technical exams incentive scheme
• Private medical insurance and Employee Assistance Programme
• Income protection and life insurance
• Company Pension scheme

  
  

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