Join us at EIT: At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we're on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators and innovators to tackle humanity's greatest challenges in four transformative areas: Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture Climate Change & Managing CO₂ Artificial Intelligence & Robotics. This is ambitious work - work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you'll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real-world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society.
Explore more at www.eit.org.
Your Role:
At EIT we are seeking a proactive, process driven IT Service Desk Manager. The IT Service Desk Manager is responsible for leading and continually improving EIT Oxford's IT Service Desk, ensuring a responsive, professional and high-quality support experience. As the primary entry point into IT, the Service Desk handles incidents, requests, support and guidance, with this role accountable for maintaining operational excellence and a white-glove user experience. This operational role requires strong Service Desk leadership experience, practical knowledge of ITIL and IT Service Management, and the ability to develop people, processes and capabilities within a complex, fast-moving organisation. Working closely with the Head of IT Services and wider IT teams, the role will own day-to-day Service Desk performance and drive continual improvement across IT service delivery.
Your Responsibilities:
- Lead and develop the IT Service Desk team, promoting ownership, accountability, professionalism and excellent customer service.
- Own day-to-day Service Desk performance, including ticket prioritisation, workload management, escalation, communication and resolution.
- Maintain strong standards across SLA/OLA performance, first-contact resolution, ticket quality and effective hand‑offs between teams.
- Act as the senior escalation point for complex or sensitive issues and identify recurring demand, bottlenecks and service improvement opportunities.
- Apply practical ITIL and Service Management principles, ensuring processes are proportionate, effective and consistently followed.
- Improve ITSM data quality, workflows, automation, self‑service and knowledge management.
- Support Incident, Major Incident, Problem and Change Management activities, including communications and operational readiness.
- Define and review Service Desk KPIs, using performance data and customer feedback to drive continual improvement.
- Build strong relationships across EIT and ensure the Service Desk continues to meet evolving scientific, technical and operational needs.
What Success Looks Like:
- A capable, engaged and accountable Service Desk team with clear ownership and performance standards.
- Consistently high‑quality support, strong customer satisfaction and a trusted reputation across EIT.
- Measurable and well‑managed service performance, with reduced backlog, aged tickets, escalations and repeat incidents.
- Consistent application of ITIL and Service Management practices, supported by effective knowledge, automation and self‑service.
- Strong participation in Incident, Problem and Change Management, with effective collaboration across IT and the wider Institute.
- A clear culture of continual improvement driven by service data and customer feedback.
Essential Skills, Qualifications & Experience:
- Extensive experience leading and developing an IT Service Desk or technical support function within a complex organisation.
- Proven success improving Service Desk performance, maturity, processes and customer experience.
- Strong practical knowledge of ITIL and IT Service Management, ideally supported by ITIL v4 certification.
- Experience across Incident, Request, Knowledge, Problem and Change Management.
- Strong understanding of SLAs, OLAs, KPIs, service reporting, escalation and continual improvement.
- Significant experience with ITSM platforms such as Jira Service Management or equivalent.
- Strong people leadership, coaching, analytical, communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Sound judgement and decision‑making in complex, sensitive or high‑pressure situations.
- Advanced ITIL qualifications, Service Desk transformation experience, or experience in scientific, research or technology environments would be advantageous.
We offer the following benefits:
- Competitive salary (based on experience) + travel allowance + bonus
- Enhanced holiday. Our annual leave allowance is 25 days plus 8 bank holidays and an additional 3 days between Christmas and New Year. You will also have the opportunity to purchase an additional 5 days annual leave in January and July.
- Pension - Employer contribution 7.5%, minimum employee contribution 5%
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IT Service Desk Manager in Oxford employer: Ellison Institute of Technology
At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer, fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration in the heart of Oxford. Our commitment to employee growth is evident through access to state-of-the-art facilities and opportunities to work alongside world-class researchers, enabling you to contribute to groundbreaking advancements in plant science and sustainable agriculture. With a comprehensive benefits package, including enhanced holiday allowances and private medical insurance, EIT is dedicated to supporting your well-being while you make a meaningful impact on global challenges.
Contact Details:
Ellison Institute of Technology Recruitment Team
