Service Continuity Lead in Salford

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’s in it for you

• Being a part of M&S is exactly that - playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day.
• We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever-evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.
• After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.
• Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
• Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
• A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
• A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
• Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
• Industry-leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
• Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
• A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you’re passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.

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.

Everyone's welcome

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.