Service Continuity Lead - Salford, Greater Manchester

Everyone is welcome at M&S. No exceptions. It’s your background, abilities and differences that make you, uniquely you. And when you’re part of M&S, that individuality has the potential to make waves.

Summary

The Service Continuity Lead is a key role within the D&T Service Management organisation, ensuring all Services have an effective Continuity plan that is regularly tested. The Service Continuity management lead is responsible for ensuring that all D&T Services/Products have an effective Continuity plan that is regularly tested and if there are any gaps that these are remediated. The Key outcome is to build organisational resilience with the capability of producing an effective response that safeguards the interests of our Stores and Colleagues protecting the organisation’s reputation, brand, and value-creating activities.

What you’ll do

• Lead and govern IT Service Continuity Management (ITSCM). Maintain the ITSCM framework, plans, policies, and governance; monitor supplier performance; track risks and remediation; and ensure alignment with organisational standards.
• Strengthen resilience and operational continuity. Develop and maintain enterprise-level continuity and incident management plans, support prevention and recovery activities, collaborate closely with Major Incident and Business Continuity teams, and ensure services remain available before, during, and after incidents.
• Champion stakeholder engagement and communication. Serve as the primary point of contact for ITSCM, influence and support stakeholders across all levels, guide teams during crises, and own communications related to continuity changes across colleagues, stores, D&T, and partners.
• Drive capability uplift and continuous improvement. Promote training, testing, automation, AI adoption, documentation quality, and data-driven metrics to enhance ITSCM effectiveness, release readiness, and operational performance.
• Support delivery and change initiatives. Provide subject-matter expertise for new services and projects, ensure continuity requirements are embedded throughout delivery phases, participate in readiness events (e.g., Golden Quarter), and oversee the ongoing health and assurance of all ITSCM plans.

Who you are

• Expert ITSCM and ITSM capability. Deep knowledge of IT Service Continuity Management, ITIL/ITSM frameworks, risk assessment, mitigation planning, and continual improvement, with experience applying best practices in complex service environments.
• Strong technical acumen. Solid understanding of IT infrastructure, applications, networks, and their impact on business operations, with hands-on experience using ITSM platforms (e.g., ServiceNow, BMC Helix) and service design tooling.
• Advanced stakeholder and supplier management. Able to build trusted partnerships across functions and levels, influence decision-making, manage external providers, and align technical and business perspectives.
• Data-driven decision-making. Skilled at interpreting operational data and metrics, extracting meaningful insights, and turning them into targeted, actionable improvements, including automation and shift-left opportunities.
• Exceptional communication and leadership. Capable of clear, concise communication tailored to diverse audiences, with the confidence to guide teams in high-pressure situations and support service continuity across colleagues, stores, and digital operations.

What’s In It For You

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

• 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation.
• Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more.
• Discretionary bonus schemes linked to your performance and ours.
• Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future.
• Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one.
• Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal.
• Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave.
• 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services.
• One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you.

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you’d benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.