Senior IT Service Manager - Office for National Statistics - G7

Location

The locations for this role are Newport and Titchfield (Fareham).

This role is aligned to ONS hybrid working principles, which are based on attending the office with purpose. The post holder will be expected to contribute to the organisation’s overall 40% office attendance, in line with business and role requirements.

The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.

About the job

Job summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics.  These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.

Our Digital Services (DS) Directorate develops and operates much of the technology and service that ONS uses to deliver. Demand for data and statistics are increasing, and DS has a critical role in enabling the business to meet these demands. 

We are seeking an experienced Senior IT Service Manager to join the Statistical Business Register division within the Digital Services Directorate. 

The Statistical Business Register (SBR) is currently being developed to replace the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The SBR will hold a comprehensive list of UK businesses and will be used as the main sampling frame for surveys of businesses carried out by ONS and other government departments. It will be made up by a collection of different products. The transition from IDBR to SBR will be delivered through a number of different transition phases.

Job description

In this role as a Senior IT Service Manager for the Statistical Business Register (SBR) you will be heavily involved in refining the support package following the release of SBR phase 1 into production later this year. The role will then further develop the support requirements for the subsequent phases of SBR to be released which are currently under development.

The IT Service Manager will be responsible for ensuring that the support processes and procedures are owned and matured inline with the different transition phases. They will be responsible for ensuring adequate resources and capacity is available across the relevant support teams to provide a comprehensive support wrapper for SBR. This includes user support, incident and problem management as well as standard maintenance associated with Service Management.

Responsibilities 

• Lead the delivery of secure, reliable and high-performing IT services that meet business needs and organisational priorities.
• Provide strategic leadership to technical teams, service functions and third-party suppliers, ensuring accountability, performance and service excellence.
• Own and govern IT Service Management processes, including incident, request, change, release, asset and configuration management.
• Establish, manage and report on SLAs, OLAs and KPIs, using performance data and management information to drive improvements.
• Act as a senior escalation point for major incidents and service issues, ensuring timely resolution and minimal disruption to live services.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, delivery teams and suppliers to ensure services remain aligned with organisational requirements.
• Manage day-to-day service delivery while balancing operational performance, risk, service improvement and project delivery activities.
• Drive continual service improvement through automation, data analysis, user feedback, best practice sharing and effective governance and compliance.
• Manage service risk, resilience and performance, acting as a senior escalation point for major incidents while ensuring robust reporting, compliance and informed decision-making.

Person specification

Essential Criteria:

• Strategic Leadership, Stakeholder Relationship Management – A strong and proactive leader with broad technical understanding, capable of leading multi-disciplinary teams, driving continuous improvement, and developing team capability and performance. They will provide strategic leadership and clear direction across IT service functions, developing service strategies, driving organisational change, and ensuring services align with business objectives. They will build, manage, and influence relationships across organisational boundaries, including senior stakeholders and 3rd party suppliers, acting as a senior escalation point, shaping engagement strategies, and fostering effective collaboration to achieve successful business and service outcomes.
• User Focus – demonstrate a real drive and passion for excellent user experience, employee enablement and continuous improvement by leading service excellence and user-focused delivery, applying insight into evolving user needs, selecting effective tools and methods, and ensuring high-quality services are delivered across multiple channels.
• Business Analysis - Able to identify risks, owning and providing plans for mitigation, considering the impact on the wider organisation. They will use data, analytics and business insight to inform decisions, monitor service performance, evaluate risks, identify trends, and drive improvements that enhance business outcomes.
• Ownership & Initiative - A driven individual, that takes accountability for issues that occur, through to resolution and is proactive in searching for potential problems and analysing trends.  They will also own service risks, issues and continuous improvement activities, implementing mitigations, improving resilience, and proactively identifying opportunities to optimise services.
• Apply a strategic view across the wider service landscape, balancing operational delivery with long-term service development, team performance, governance requirements, and organisational priorities.