Lead Incident Management in London

WELCOME TO SITA

At SITA, we keep airports moving, airlines flying smoothly, and borders open. Our technology and communication innovations power the success of the global air travel industry. You'll find us in 95% of international airports, working closely with over 2,500 transportation and government clients. Each partnership brings unique challenges, and we thrive on delivering fresh solutions and cutting-edge tech to keep operations running like clockwork.

ABOUT THE ROLE & TEAM

As Team Leader & Incident Manager, you combine day-to-day leadership of the local SITA team with local Major Incident leadership and coordination for significant incidents across the MAG estate. Based at Manchester, with flexibility to work across Manchester, Stansted and East Midlands, you sit at the heart of the partnership between SITA and Manchester Airports Group (MAG), maintaining service delivery quality in a live, 24/7 operational environment.

This is a dual role. As Team Leader, you lead, develop and coordinate the local engineering and support team, making sure resource is in the right place at the right time and that the team operates as one with MAG, its airlines and its ground-handling partners. As Incident Manager, you are the local single point of accountability and the single point of contact (SPOC) for significant incidents across the MAG estate, coordinating operational response, stakeholder communications, escalation activities and service restoration efforts from identification through to resolution and post-incident review.

You operate as part of a dual-layer virtual incident management function, working closely with SITA's Central Incident Managers and specialist resolver teams so the MAG operation benefits from strong local incident leadership, clear coordination and SITA's wider global capability. You prioritise incidents based on operational impact rather than volume alone, helping to minimise service disruption, reduce restoration times and provide MAG with confidence that every significant incident is actively coordinated and has a clear point of accountability.

Incident management is not a monitoring function. It is an active control point that drives operational efficiency, protects the passenger and airline experience, and continuously feeds Problem Management so that recurring issues are eliminated over time rather than repeatedly managed. Beyond individual incidents, you own and govern the local incident management process, ensuring it is consistently applied and continually improved, and contributing to the operational and service resilience of MAG's critical airport systems.

What You'll Do

• Major Incident Management
• Act as the local single point of accountability and SPOC for significant incidents across the MAG estate, coordinating incident response, communications, escalations and service restoration activities from identification through to resolution and post-incident review.
• Lead and coordinate technical and operational resources during major incidents, acting as the primary coordination point for incident bridges and stakeholder communications.
• Ensure the shortest possible restoration times, initiating timely escalations to specialised resolver groups inside and outside SITA in line with MAG's contracts, SLAs and monitoring requirements.
• Provide clear, structured and timely communication to MAG, airlines, handlers and internal stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of an incident.
• Ensure incident response activities are prioritised based on operational impact, passenger experience and business risk, enabling effective allocation of support resources.

• Resilience & Service Continuity
• Lead operational reviews of high-impact service failures and/or exercises, and drive resilience improvements across critical airport systems.
• Contribute to operational and service resilience, business continuity and disaster recovery (DR) planning across the MAG estate.
• Participate in, coordinate and learn from DR testing and resilience exercises, feeding outcomes back into continuous improvement.
• Champion a "prevent failure, not just recover" mindset in line with the Nexus model, strengthening the resilience of critical national infrastructure over time.

• Dual-Layer Incident Function
• Operate as the local layer of a dual-layer virtual incident management function, working hand in hand with SITA's Central Incident Managers.
• Ensure the MAG operation always has visible local incident leadership and accountability, backed by SITA's wider global incident and engineering capability, including out of hours.
• Maintain a single, auditable view of incidents through the ITSM toolset, fully integrated with MAG's environment and the SLA framework.

• Process Governance & Service Reviews
• Own and govern the local incident management process, ensuring procedures are applied consistently, well governed and continually improved.
• Lead Major Incident Reviews (post-incident reviews), capturing lessons learned and driving corrective and preventative actions to closure.
• Contribute incident performance, trends and improvement outcomes to the partnership's governance cycle, including Monthly Service Reviews (MSR), Problem Management Forums and compliance reviews.
• Ensure incident data and reporting support MAG's SLA, compliance and CNI regulatory obligations.

• Team Leadership
• Lead, develop and coordinate the local SITA engineering and support team, fostering engagement, high performance and a genuine one-team culture with MAG.
• Optimise resourcing across all three sites, making sure the right capability is in the right place at the right time, including through operational peaks.
• Coach and support team members, managing day-to-day performance, rotas and readiness in a 24/7 operational environment.
• Champion SITA standards, procedures and ways of working, embedding continuous improvement into everyday delivery.

• Problem Management & Continuous Improvement
• Enable and feed Problem Management by capturing accurate incident detail, identifying real-time patterns and linking incidents to related Problems and Changes.
• Drive trend analysis to reduce recurring incidents over time and strengthen service resilience.
• Collaborate with the dedicated engineering resource, Technical Support Specialists and central product specialists to eliminate root causes.

• Partnership & Stakeholder Engagement
• Work closely with the General Manager, Customer Operations, the Project Manager and the Airline & Product Strategy Lead to keep incident management joined up with wider delivery.
• Build trusted, collaborative relationships with MAG operational teams, airlines and ground handlers, being a visible and accessible point of contact.
• Represent SITA in customer and internal service reviews, sharing performance, insights and improvement outcomes.

What Success Looks Like

• Every significant incident has a clear point of accountability, is effectively coordinated and resolved in a timely manner, supported by clear, proactive stakeholder communication throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Short, consistent restoration times that protect the passenger and airline experience.
• Demonstrable improvements in operational and service resilience across critical airport systems.
• A well-governed incident management process, with Major Incident Reviews and service reviews driving continuous improvement.
• A recognised reduction in recurring incidents through effective Problem Management and trend analysis.
• A high-performing, engaged local team operating as one with MAG, airlines and handlers.
• A single, auditable view of incident performance that gives MAG confidence, transparency and regulatory assurance.

Qualifications

About Your Skills

• Proven experience in incident management, ideally including major incident coordination in a live, 24/7 operational environment.
• Experience owning or governing an incident management process and chairing Major Incident Reviews and/or service reviews.
• Experience of business continuity, disaster recovery and service resilience, including exercises and testing.
• Experience leading and developing technical or operational teams.
• Strong understanding of ITIL incident, problem and change management practices.
• Excellent organisational and communication skills, with the ability to lead technical bridges and communicate clearly under pressure.
• Experience tracking and reporting against SLAs and metrics such as MTTA and MTTR.
• Ability to prioritise based on operational impact and make sound decisions at pace.
• Excellent relationship-building skills, with a track record of working closely and collaboratively with customers, airlines and delivery partners.
• Familiarity with ITSM toolsets (e.g. ServiceNow) and integrated service management.
• A collaborative, partnership-led approach to delivering service with customers, airlines and handlers.

Essential Experience

• Demonstrable experience acting as the point of accountability for, and coordinating and leading, major incidents within a complex operational environment.
• Experience owning or governing an incident management process, including post-incident and service reviews.
• Experience contributing to operational resilience, business continuity or disaster recovery in a critical environment.
• Experience operating within regulated, safety-critical or mission-critical environments (critical national infrastructure an advantage).
• ITIL certification, or equivalent demonstrable incident management experience.
• A track record of working closely with customers and third-party partners to maintain service quality in live operational environments.
• Experience leading or coordinating a team in a fast-paced operational setting.

Nice-to-Have

• Experience in aviation, airports or transport IT solutions.
• Familiarity with the MAG estate, its airlines and its operational environment.
• Knowledge of common-use and self-service passenger-processing environments (CUPPS, CUSS, self-service bag drop, BRS).
• Familiarity with SITA Flex and shared-use, self-service and airline integration architectures.
• Experience integrating ServiceNow or equivalent ITSM platforms with customer toolsets.

WHAT WE OFFER

We're all about diversity. We operate in 200 countries and speak 60 different languages and cultures. We're really proud of our inclusive environment. Our offices are comfortable and fun places to work, and we make sure you get to work from home too.

• Flex Week: Work from home up to 2 days/week (depending on your team's needs)
• Flex Day: Make your workday suit your life and plans.
• Flex-Location: Take up to 30 days a year to work from any location in the world.
• Employee Wellbeing: We have got you covered with our Employee Assistance Program (EAP), for you and your dependents 24/7, 365 days/year.
• Professional Development: At SITA, we believe growth fuels innovation. Our learning ecosystem offers access to world-class platforms and programs designed to help you thrive.
• Competitive Benefits: Competitive benefits that make sense with both your local market and employment status.

SITA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value a diverse workforce. In support of our Employment Equity Program, we encourage women, aboriginal people, members of visible minorities, and/or persons with disabilities to apply and self-identify in the application process.