Senior Pre-Sales Service Architect in Sheffield

Location: Remote with occasional travel to customer or company sites as required.

The Service Design and Presales Architect is a senior, hands-on role responsible for defining, positioning and shaping our Managed Services. You will lead the service design workstream across bids and proposals, translating customer needs into clear, compelling, and operationally sound service models. The role includes designing repeatable and scalable services, including service scope, levels, governance, and supporting commercial viability. You will collaborate with Sales, Bid Management, Delivery Practice, Operations and Solution Architecture to ensure proposed services are deliverable and effectively transitioned into operations.

This role suits a proactive, strategic thinker who can independently drive innovation, challenge assumptions and deliver services that are differentiated, credible and sustainable.

Accountabilities and Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the service design and presales workstream across RFIs, RFPs, ITTs, CQs PQQs and tender responses, ensuring all service-related documentation is accurate, high quality, and clearly demonstrates customer value, benefits and outcomes.
• Engage with customers and internal teams to validate requirements, translating these into clearly defined, realistic service models, customer journeys, and operationally viable solutions.
• Lead the creation of high-quality, comprehensive Statements of Work, ensuring clarity, operational feasibility, and alignment with customer requirements.
• Take ownership of the document approval process, including securing internal sign-off and obtaining customer agreement/signature, to ensure all commitments are formally validated and fully actionable.
• Take responsibility for end-to-end costing and resourcing of Managed Services, including labour, tooling, licensing, capacity planning, onboarding effort, and ongoing operational effort.
• Work closely with Finance, Commercial, Product, Operations, Legal, and Solution Architecture teams to ensure assumptions, risks, dependencies, and delivery requirements are fully understood and reflected in cost models and pricing structures.
• Develop and articulate win themes and value propositions that demonstrate how proposed services meet customer requirements and deliver measurable value.
• Collaborate with Sales and Bid Management to structure proposals, align with customer priorities, and address gaps or weaknesses.
• Represent the organisation as the senior presales authority in customer meetings, workshops and deal review boards.
• Lead qualification, scoping, and progression of opportunities, confidently presenting our propositions while articulating the service model, delivery approach, commercial structure, and expected outcomes.
• Provide strategic guidance, address complex customer requirements, and influence decision-making to secure commitment and strengthen long-term relationships.
• Proactively challenge assumptions, identify opportunities for innovation, recommend improvements to service design and delivery approaches.
• Drive the continuous evolution of the Managed Service presales strategy, taking a proactive role in analysing win/loss outcomes, identifying trends, and recommending targeted improvements.
• Maintain a deep and authoritative understanding of our Managed Service portfolio, go-to-market strategies, capabilities, and key service areas.
• Take full accountability for the end-to-end presales lifecycle for assigned opportunities, ensuring each engagement is expertly managed from initial qualification through to formal closure and seamless transition into BAU support.
• Support Sales during contract negotiations, renewals and change controls, providing service design insight to ensure agreements remain deliverable.

Service Design & Proposition Development:

• Design and document high-quality, repeatable and scalable Managed Services, defining scope, service levels, roles and responsibilities, processes, expected outcomes and value delivered.
• Create clear supporting materials and service descriptions that explain how each service works, what the customer can expect and the value it provides.
• Develop comprehensive Operational Service Designs and Service Descriptions covering workflows, supporting processes, reporting, escalation models, tooling requirements and service governance.
• Work closely with Solution Architects, Product Teams, Operations, Delivery, Finance and Commercial teams to confirm services are technically feasible, operationally viable and aligned with company standards.
• Contribute to cost modelling by identifying the operational activities, resources and tooling required.
• Support the creation and continual improvement of standard service components, templates and frameworks.
• Continuously improve service design by capturing operational feedback, identifying risks and constraints and refining processes.
• Ensure all service designs incorporate performance measures, reporting requirements, compliance considerations and clearly defined customer obligations.
• Monitor market trends and emerging customer needs to inform portfolio development.

Stakeholder Collaboration:

• Work with the Transition Team to facilitate the on-boarding of successful Managed Services awards into operational support.
• Participate in continuous improvement activities, supporting enhancements to existing service offerings and documentation quality.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement:

• Promote a culture of innovation by encouraging colleagues and stakeholders to contribute ideas and solutions.
• Continuously refine service standards, templates, processes, and documentation to improve efficiency, clarity, consistency, and operational effectiveness.
• Monitor evolving market trends, emerging customer needs, and industry best practices in Managed Services.
• Identify opportunities to leverage technology, automation, and digital tools to streamline processes.
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement, aligning initiatives with organisational strategy and customer outcomes.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Significant experience (5+ years) in Service Design, Presales Architecture, or Managed Services design within a technology services, MSP, or consultancy environment.
• ITIL 4 Managing Professional accreditation, or at least five years’ experience operating within an ITIL aligned service management function.
• Demonstrable experience producing high-quality bid, tender, and service response documentation.
• Strong understanding of operational service delivery, ITIL-based service models, SLAs/OLAs, managed service lifecycle principles.
• Solid understanding of customer requirements including service availability, transparency, security, governance, support, and business continuity.
• Excellent commercial awareness with experience contributing to cost models.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, able to collaborate effectively across Sales, Delivery, Product, Operations, and Executive teams.