Location: London or Sheffield (2 days per week onsite)
Contract Type: Contract, 6 months (likely to extend)
Rate: £(Apply online only) inside IR35
Are you an experienced IT Service Manager / Service Transition Manager with significant experience of transitioning services from one large supplier of IT services to another? Do you have experience working in large-scale, complex environments, ideally with a background in broader Service Management disciplines? If so, apply now for this new contract role.
The Service Manager / Service Transition Manager will lead and govern the end-to-end transition of services from incumbent to new suppliers, ensuring zero or minimal service disruption, strong knowledge transfer, and that operational readiness is achieved before go‑live. This role sits at the intersection of project delivery, service management, and vendor governance, applying ITIL best practices to manage risk, quality, and continuity.
The Service Manager / Service Transition Manager will be responsible for the following:
Planning & Governance
Own the Service Transition Plan and Transition Runbook, including scope, milestones, acceptance criteria, risks, dependencies, and cutover strategy
Define and run stage gates (Operational Readiness Review, Go/No-Go) and maintain Transition RAID
Establish transition governance
Operational Readiness & Handover
Define and gain sign‑off on Operational & Service Acceptance Criteria.
Ensure support model including SLAs, escalation paths etc are documented and resourced
Supplier/Vendor Management
Coordinate knowledge transfer between outgoing and incoming suppliers
Track supplier deliverables vs contract
Service Management Integration
Embed ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change, Release, Knowledge, Configuration, Capacity, Availability, Continuity) into the operating model
Ensure tooling readiness
Risk, Compliance & Security
Conduct transition risk assessments and maintain mitigations
Stakeholder Management & Communications
Own the transition communications plan and act as the primary point of contact for senior stakeholders / programme leadership on transition status and risks
Skills & Experience
Proven experience delivering supplier transitions or service on/offboarding in large enterprises with large scale IT suppliers
Strong grasp of ITIL v3/v4 practices (especially Change, Release, Knowledge, Configuration, Incident/Problem)
Demonstrable experience running operational readiness and cutover events with minimal disruption
Excellent project/RAID management, stakeholder engagement, and supplier governance
The role will either be based in London or Sheffield with a minimum of 2 days per week expected onsite. Please note you will occasionally need to visit the other office, so a degree of travel is required.
The rate is expected to be in the region of £(Apply online only) inside IR35. The role will initially be for 6 months with extensions highly likely.
IT Service Manager / Service Transition Manager (Supplier Transition)