Head of Service Operations

Would you like to work in a supportive, collaborative and innovative company?

Do you enjoy working as part of an enthusiastic, passionate, and collaborative team?

• Leading the Service Operations function, building the coordination team from a standing start and setting a culture centred on flow, evidence, accountability and operational discipline
• Owning the operational control model for live services
• Leading the Unified Service Desk through its own management line, accountable for its service levels, its workforce and shift planning and the quality of what it passes to technical teams and partners, without running it day to day
• Owning the incident, problem, change and major incident management practices and monitoring across live service
• Establishing the control plane across towers, partners and locations
• Building an operating standard that holds across time zones and delivery locations
• Ensuring every item of live work carries a named owner and a risk-based priority, and that both are set by Service Operations rather than by the team doing the resolving
• Setting the prioritisation rules, publishing them, and applying them identically to every team that delivers, Softcat's own included, with exceptions recorded and visible rather than granted informally
• Reprioritising engineering backlogs by customer impact, risk and ageing, and holding that position with tower leadership on the strength of the evidence

• Extensive senior operational leadership experience in live service delivery, managed services or an IT service provider environment, running services for multiple customers concurrently
• Proven experience of owning operational control across a multi tower, multi team or multi partner estate, including prioritisation, escalation and flow
• Strong major incident command experience, including leading recovery under pressure and owning communications with senior stakeholders and customers
• A track record of building a function, capability or operating model from a standing start, as well as of running one that already exists
• Demonstrated ability to hold an evidenced position against senior technical and commercial stakeholders, and to be the person who says no to a poorly justified escalation
• Experience of establishing decision rights, operating rhythms and quality standards that survive contact with a busy operational environment

We also acknowledge that the confidence gap and imposter syndrome are a real thing and can get in the way of us meeting fantastic talent, so please don't hesitate to apply - we would love to hear from you!

We recognise that everyone is different and that the way in which people want to work and deliver at their best is different for everyone too. In this role, we can offer the following flexible working patterns:

• Hybrid working - 2/3 days in the office and 2/3 days working from home
• Working flexible hours - flexing the times you start and finish during the day
• Flexibility around school pick up and drop offs

Wherever you work, we want you to experience the freedom and autonomy to realise your potential. You will feel supported by a team that celebrates individuality, encourages different perspectives, and embraces every background.

To become part of the success story, please

If you have a disability or neurodiversity, we can provide support or adjustments that you may need throughout our recruitment process or any mitigating circumstance you wish for us to consider. Any information you share on your application will be treated in confidence. You can find out more about life at Softcat and our commitments to diversity and inclusion at jobs.softcat.com/jobs/our-culture/

Here at Softcat, we don't prohibit the use of AI (artificial intelligence) in our application process, as we understand how far it can go to creating a truly equitable candidate experience. That being said, as a culture-driven organisation, we believe that the genuine essence of each person is what truly matters, so we highly encourage you to be as authentically you as possible when submitting your application to showcase your true and whole self.