Service Transition Lead (Unity Programme) in Manchester

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. This is a fantastic opportunity to join the major cross government Unity Programme which will bring together Shared Services for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), Department for Transport (DFT) and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). The programme aims to deliver the tools in Human Resources (HR), Recruitment, Talent & Learning, Finance, Payroll, and Procurement to enable users to complete administration tasks quickly and with minimal effort by modernising our IT Platform, bringing together our shared services teams, standardising our data and cutting through processes that cost our departments time and money.

As Service Transition Lead, you will be responsible for ensuring that programme deliverables are successfully transitioned into operational service. You will provide leadership to ensure controlled transition of Unity services from programme delivery into live operational service, ensuring continuity of critical business functions, minimal disruption to users and clear accountability across the cluster, suppliers and service owners.

Working across business, operational and technical teams, you will provide strategic leadership for service readiness, operational acceptance and service mobilisation activities. You will lead relationships across Unity Business Services (UBS), Unity Technology Services (UTS), Programme Delivery Teams, Cluster Departments and external partners to ensure new services are deployed safely, effectively and with minimal disruption to colleagues and customers. This is a highly visible leadership role requiring strong stakeholder engagement, strategic thinking and the ability to influence at senior levels across multiple organisations.

As Service Transition Lead you will:

• Develop and lead the Unity Service Transition Strategy, ensuring alignment with programme objectives and wider Government Shared Services ambitions.
• Establish and maintain service transition plans, transition governance, assurance frameworks and readiness criteria.
• Lead service and operational readiness and service acceptance activities across multiple programme releases.
• Provide assurance on plans to assure effective technical cutover planning, deployment coordination and transition into live service.
• Act as the senior escalation point for service transition risks, issues and dependencies.
• Work collaboratively with Programme, UBS and UTS leadership teams to ensure operational services are sustainable from day one.
• Oversee knowledge transfer, support model development and training readiness and operational handover activities.
• Provide regular transition reporting and recommendations to Programme Boards, Senior Leadership Teams and governance forums.
• Drive continuous improvement activities during stabilisation and early life support phases.
• Build and lead high-performing, multidisciplinary teams, creating an environment that encourages innovation, collaboration and accountability.
• Ensure services are designed and transitioned in line with user-centred and customer-focused principles.

We are looking for a confident and experienced leader who can operate effectively in a complex, fast-paced and evolving environment. You will have experience of delivering Large-Scale IT Transformation Delivery integrating Insight, Governance and Service Improvement and have worked in development and delivery of a SAP S/4HANA instance. You will have significant business AND technology transformation experience and be comfortable working across organisational boundaries to deliver successful outcomes.

You will demonstrate:

• A successful track record of transitioning services into a live / production environment.
• Strong strategic leadership skills with the ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Experience of leading service transition, operational readiness, implementation and mobilisation activities within complex transformation environments.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, including engagement with Directors, Senior Responsible Owners and external partners.
• Strong programme and risk management capability.
• An understanding of SAP S/4HANA and have the ability to translate complex technical and operational requirements into practical delivery plans.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills.
• Experience of leading multidisciplinary teams and delivering outcomes through others.
• Sound judgement and decision-making skills in ambiguous environments.

The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Significant experience leading service transition, operational readiness or large-scale implementation activity.
• Proven ability to lead complex transformation programmes involving multiple stakeholders and delivery partners.
• Experience of managing organisational readiness, business readiness and service acceptance activities.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, including experience working with senior leaders.
• Strong governance, risk management and assurance experience.
• Demonstrable experience delivering results in complex and ambiguous environments.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex information clearly.
• Business and Technical experience and should have taken projects live (Service Transition).

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience of ERP transformation programmes - specifically SAP S/4HANA.
• Business transformation AND technology delivery experience.
• Knowledge of Shared Services operating models.
• Experience of Major Projects or large public sector transformation programmes.
• Knowledge of Service Management principles.
• Experience within HR, Payroll, Finance or Procurement transformation environments.

HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs. We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.