Senior Service Desk Manager
Location: UK Bury Head office (supporting UK & EU operations)Reporting to: Associate Director - Support & Operations
Role Overview
The Service Desk Manager is responsible for the leadership, performance, and continuous improvement of the IT service desk function supporting our UK and EU business operations. This role provides end-to-end operational ownership across four service desks, each led by a Team Leader, ensuring consistent, high-quality support for the systems, services, and platforms that enable day-to-day business activity.
Working closely with Retail Customer Services, Solution Delivery, Engineering, and Supply Chain, the role will anticipate evolving support requirements within a fast-paced environment and shape a scalable, unified, omni-channel service experience aligned to wider IT and business strategy.
The Service Desk Manager will provide leadership, governance, and escalation management across the service desk estate, driving service maturity, operational efficiency, and measurable customer satisfaction.
The objective of this role is to evolve the service desk into a high-performing, industry-leading support function, demonstrated through measurable improvements in customer satisfaction, service reliability, operational efficiency, and service maturity.
Key Responsibilities
Service Desk Leadership & Operations
Lead and manage four service desks through direct leadership of Service Desk Team Leaders.
Ensure consistent, high-quality incident resolution, request fulfilment, and user support aligned to ITIL practices.
Maintain operational stability, resilience, and effective escalation management across all supported services.
Act as the senior point of contact for major incidents, service degradation, and high-priority escalations.
Service Performance, Governance & Reporting
Own delivery against agreed KPIs, SLAs, and customer experience measures set by the Support Director.
Establish performance dashboards, reporting cadences, and service reviews to drive transparency and accountability.
Identify trends, risks, and improvement opportunities through data-driven service analysis.
Ensure adherence to IT service management policies, controls, and audit requirements.
Continuous Improvement & Service Maturity
Drive continual service improvement initiatives aligned to ITIL and organisational objectives.
Standardise processes, tooling, and knowledge management across all service desks.
Lead the evolution toward a unified, omni-channel support model eventually spanning phone, portal, chat, and self-service.
Improve first-contact resolution, automation adoption, and overall cost-to-serve.
Stakeholder Collaboration
Build strong partnerships with Retail Customer Services, Engineering, Solution Delivery, and Supply Chain.
Represent the service desk within governance forums, change advisory boards, and operational reviews.
Translate business demand into scalable support capability and service design improvements.
People Leadership & Capability Development
Coach and develop Service Desk Team Leaders to build a high-performing, customer-focused culture.
Drive workforce planning, succession development, and skills maturity across the function.
Champion engagement, mental health wellbeing, and performance management within distributed support teams.
Additional Responsibilities
Act as deputy to the AD - Support & Operations, providing leadership cover and decision-making as required.
Contribute to IT operational strategy, budgeting, and organisational planning.
Support transformation initiatives impacting service support, tooling, or operating model.
Implementation and delivery of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
SLA achievement across incidents and service requests
First-contact resolution rate and mean time to resolve (MTTR)
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) and user experience metrics
Major incident response effectiveness
Knowledge utilisation and self-service adoption
Cost efficiency and productivity per analyst
Team engagement and retention
Skills & Experience Required
Essential
Significant experience leading multi-site or multi-team IT service desks.
Proven delivery within an ITIL-aligned service management environment.
Strong operational leadership combined with strategic service improvement capability.
Experience managing KPIs, SLAs, service reporting, and governance frameworks.
Demonstrated stakeholder management across technical and business functions.
Experience leading through change, transformation, or service consolidation.
Desirable
ITIL certification (v4 Foundation minimum; higher preferred).
Experience with omni-channel support tooling and automation.
Background in retail, logistics, or customer-facing operational environments.
Budget ownership or financial management exposure.
Leadership Behaviours
Customer-centric and outcome-driven.
Data-led decision maker with strong operational discipline.
Calm and decisive during major incidents or high-pressure situations.
Collaborative influencer across technical and business stakeholders.
Committed to continuous improvement and team development.