Head of IT Services

• Job Details
• Locations: Edinburgh, United Kingdom (Hybrid)
• Working Pattern: Full Time
• Number of Openings: 1
• Temporary Promotion Opportunity

This is a temporary promotion opportunity for 6 months.

Overview

Reporting to the director of “Strategy, Delivery and Digital Transformation”, this interim role consolidates the management of technical teams and presents opportunities to deliver tangible business benefits.

The Head of IT Services will lead delivery, performance and continual improvement of IT services across the National Records of Scotland (NRS), ensuring services are secure, reliable, resilient, and user focused.

Providing leadership across IT Service Management, Database, Applications and Infrastructure services, you will drive operational excellence, service performance and continuous improvement across the organisation.

As a leader, you will provide direction for major IT initiatives that support business operations and service resilience, including technology refresh, platform upgrades and infrastructure modernisation activities.

Working closely with cyber security, digital and business colleagues, you will ensure successful delivery, effective risk management and value for money, while maintaining high‑performing services that support organisational priorities.

A permanent “Head of IT Services” will be recruited in January 2027.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day‑to‑day delivery, performance and continuous improvement of IT services across Service Management, Data, Applications and Infrastructure.
• Ensure IT services meet agreed service levels, operational standards, user needs and organisational priorities.
• Set the strategy and operating model for IT Service Management, ensuring clear ownership of incidents, problems, changes, releases, requests, assets, configuration and service transition processes.
• Lead, shape and develop multidisciplinary teams, building capability, accountability and a culture of continuous improvement while fostering strong operational performance.
• Provide innovative ways of working to achieve desired outcomes, build stakeholder consensus around proposed approaches and champion operational management across the wider community.
• Act as a recognised expert and advocate for proposed approaches, continuously reflecting on team performance, constructively challenging ways of working and cascading industry best practice to improve processes and delivery.
• Demonstrate advanced understanding of design, technology and data principles, applying these within your service area, while identifying and implementing solutions for assisted digital services and the DDa T roles required to support them.
• Contribute to business cases, service improvement plans and technology roadmaps, ensuring investment decisions are informed by operational needs, user requirements, affordability and organisational priorities, while developing benefits across the portfolio.
• Apply experience across multiple stages of the product lifecycle, understanding the financial cost and value delivered per sprint, working closely with Agile delivery operations and recognising when to progress, pause or stop activity based on deliverables and stakeholder needs.
• Build effective relationships with operational delivery leaders, planning and engaging appropriate stakeholders at each project stage, anticipating risks, managing escalations for major operational issues and making operations more efficient.
• Develop a long‑term vision and objectives, understand how individual problems fit within the wider organisational context, articulate complex challenges clearly, build problem‑solving capability in others and maintain a disciplined focus on what is most important and relevant.
• Success Profile

Success profiles for this role include the mix of skills, experience and behaviours that will be assessed.

• Technical / Professional Skills
• Adapting to delivery methodologies – Expert
• Applying user‑centred insights – Expert
• Governance and assurance – Expert
• Leading performance and benefits – Expert
• Life cycle management – Practitioner
• Operational management – Expert
• Stakeholder relationship management – Expert

Qualifications

• Senior IT operations and service management leadership – Significant experience leading complex IT operations and service management functions, including incident, problem, change, release, asset, configuration, service transition and service reporting practices.
• Leadership across multidisciplinary technology teams – Proven ability to lead and develop teams across Service Management, Data, Applications and/or Infrastructure, creating clear accountabilities, improving capability and embedding a culture of service ownership and continual improvement.
• Operational resilience, cyber alignment and technical understanding – Strong technical understanding across modern IT environments, with experience managing service performance, operational risk, major incidents, resilience, suppliers and close working relationships with Cyber Security Operations.
• Stakeholder, commercial and improvement focus – Strong ability to influence senior stakeholders, manage suppliers and budgets, translate technical issues into business impact, and use service data, user insight and performance reporting to drive measurable service improvements.

Benefits

Our standard hours are 35 hours per week, and we offer a range of flexible working options, including Flexi‑leave.

This post is only open to individuals who have satisfactorily completed their probationary period.

Applicants must discuss their intention to apply with their current line manager to help ensure early release and balance with current duties.

Location

This post is based in Edinburgh.

As with most areas across the organization, hybrid working is the current arrangement.

Given the operational nature of this role, you will be expected to work on‑site at least 40% of the time.

Vacancies close at 11:59pm on 26th July 2026.

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