1st Line IT Support Analyst – Retail Tech in Bury

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world. JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally.

We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives.

JD Sports Fashion Plc has long been established as the leading UK specialised multiple retailer of fashionable branded and own brand sports and casual wear, principally through the growth of its main retail fascia, JD Sports. The group now has over 1500 stores and is continuing to grow. We instil our staff with the knowledge and training they need to fulfil challenging and rewarding careers. Our workforce is built on motivated self-starters and we encourage our people to constantly seek ways to improve our business. This means challenging the way we merchandise, sell and manage the business, being creative and forward thinking in suggesting alternative solutions. Problems are solved and opportunities seized by people from all levels of the organisation, working together.

Role Description

Reporting to the IT Service Desk First Line team leader, the Tech Support Analyst will be responsible for providing 1st line technical support to the JD Group fascias and offices. Responsibilities include:

• Providing technical support, including detection, recording, analysis and the resolution of incidents received via phone, email, intranet and walk-up.
• Responding to support enquiries directly from clients, and helping them resolve hardware and/or software problems.
• Maintaining a high degree of customer service for all support queries and adhering to all service management principles.
• Arranging for external technical support where problems cannot be resolved in house.
• Working closely with the service support teams, development teams and key business stakeholders to ensure that incidents are managed through to resolution.

General Responsibilities

• Providing 1st line technical support for the IT functions of the business.
• Logging all support calls within the ITSM call logging tool.
• Liaising and working with other JD Technical teams as required (e.g., escalating to 2nd Line).
• Liaising with 3rd Party technical support teams when necessary.
• Assisting and working alongside Knowledge Management to document working procedures.
• Establishing and maintaining effective relationships with the business users and group IT teams.
• Owning customer issues and driving through to resolution.
• Assisting ITIL managers in the development and maintenance of IT Support processes.
• Proactively identifying areas for improvement and driving through to implementation.

Experience & Knowledge

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly and effectively convey information to colleagues, stakeholders, and end users.
• Proven ability to identify technical and operational issues promptly, accurately log them, and escalate or communicate appropriately to relevant personnel.
• Able to remain calm and structured when working under pressure, maintaining clarity and focus in high-demand or time-sensitive situations.
• Comfortable working in a dynamic, fast-paced setting, with the ability to quickly adapt to changing priorities and demands.
• Demonstrated capability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously, ensuring consistent attention to detail and timely delivery across all responsibilities.
• Experience in a retail environment.
• Experience of working in an ITIL environment, understanding how the end-to-end processes work across the organisation.
• Ability to demonstrate both business and IT benefits where appropriate.
• An appreciation of ERP solutions, standards, tools and techniques.

Skills / Behaviours

• Incident diagnosis and problem-solving skills within an IT environment.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and negotiation skills, both verbal and written.
• Ability to plan, coordinate and prioritise different activities.
• Ability to liaise with, and relate to, a broad spectrum of individuals.
• Strong customer service ethos with a can-do mentality.
• Comfortable in playing a key role within a team environment.
• A flexible approach to the provision of support services to a dynamic, growing business.
• A strong desire to learn new skills.
• Good working knowledge of Microsoft Windows (v7 & v8) & Office packages (2007, 2010, 2013 & 365).
• Good network knowledge (WAN / LAN).
• Good understanding of PC hardware set-up, configuration and maintenance.
• Understanding the business drivers (e.g., tangible, intangible benefits).
• Understanding of MAC OSX & iOS (including MDM).

We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff discount on JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work.