Service Operations Lead in Swindon

Locations: Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom; Newport, United Kingdom; Billingham, County Durham, United Kingdom (Hybrid).

Salary: Band F (£51,501- £56,651)

Security Clearance: SC clearance (or willingness to obtain)

Location: Swindon, Stockton-on-Tees or Newport, Wales with Hybrid, flexible working across a 37-hour week

It’s an exciting time to join UKSBS as we transform our business to be the leading UK public sector business service provider. We aim to become a very different organisation over the next few years as we move to a modern multi-platform, digitally enabled organisation.

We are now seeking an experienced Service Operations Lead, who will lead the operational management oversight of all services that D&I are accountable for inclusive of our existing and future clients across live environments, ensuring service stability, performance, compliance and continual improvement.

The role combines hands-on service leadership, people management and strategic contribution, operating at Band F level with autonomy, authority and influence across the organisation. Due to the sensitive nature of the systems and data involved, this role requires SC clearance.

The responsibilities for this role include, but are not limited to the following:

• Own the live service operation for the D&I services, ensuring services are delivered in line with agreed SLAs, OLAs and KPIs.
• Act as the operational authority for Incident, Major Incident, Problem, Change and Release Management processes.
• Ensure effective root cause analysis, problem resolution and prevention of recurring service issues.
• Chair or contribute to operational forums including Service Reviews, CAB, Major Incident Reviews and supplier performance meetings.
• Ensure service availability, resilience and performance meet business and customer expectations.

Service Governance & Continuous Improvement

• Comply with service governance frameworks, maintaining alignment with ITIL, organisational policy and government standards.
• Contribute to continual service improvement (CSI) initiatives, identifying opportunities to improve service quality, efficiency, resilience and customer experience.
• Define, monitor and report on service performance metrics, trends and risks, providing clear insight to senior stakeholders.
• Translate strategic service objectives into tactical operational plans and measurable outcomes.

People Leadership & Capability

• Provide line management and leadership for service management and service operations colleagues, as appropriate.
• Set clear objectives, allocate work effectively and ensure high-quality outputs across the team.
• Coach and mentor colleagues, supporting capability development in service management and ITIL practices.
• Contribute to workforce planning, succession planning and capability growth within Service Operations.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communication

• Act as a senior point of contact for D&I Operations across the organisation.
• Build strong relationships with product owners, business stakeholders, delivery teams and external partners.
• Communicate service performance, risks and improvement activity clearly and confidently to senior management.
• Influence decision-making by providing authoritative operational advice and evidence-based recommendations.

Risk, Security & Compliance

• Ensure services comply with information security, data protection, audit and regulatory requirements.
• Identify, manage and escalate operational risks, ensuring mitigations are in place and tracked.
• Support internal and external audits, assurance activities and compliance reporting.
• Promote a strong culture of wellbeing, risk awareness and operational accountability.

To do this role well, you would need to demonstrate the following:

• Significant experience managing live service operations for complex SaaS or ERP platforms (Oracle Fusion & Workday preferred).
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to operate confidently at senior levels.
• Strong working knowledge of ITIL service management practices, including Incident, Problem, Change, Release and Service Level Management.
• Proven experience leading service teams and managing operational performance in a regulated or secure environment.
• Experience working with third-party suppliers and managing service delivery against contractual commitments.
• Demonstrable experience driving continual service improvement and operational change.
• Willingness to obtain and maintain SC clearance.
• Experience operating services within government or public sector environments.
• ITIL certification (Foundation or higher) would be advantageous.
• Experience working with ServiceNow.
• Knowledge of Agile, DevOps or hybrid delivery models alongside ITIL.
• Experience contributing to service strategy, operating models or target operating models.

For additional information and a confidential discussion please contact our Recruitment Team on recruiting@uksbs.co.uk.

We are an inclusive and Disability Confident employer and welcome all applications. Find out more about our equality, diversity and inclusion commitments on our website.

Successful candidates will be required to undergo Security Clearance (National Security Vetting) as part of their employment. To meet these standards, applicants must normally have lived in the UK for at least the last five years and be able to satisfy background, identity and criminal record checks.

UKSBS does not hold a Home Office Sponsor Licence under the UK Immigration System, therefore candidates are required to have eligibility to live and work in the UK prior to applying.

We look forward to hearing from you.

We are UKSBS. We are creating a place where people love to work, a culture where we lead, we change, we deliver and we empower our people to be curious, take action and add value.