Lead Service Manager (ITIL)

Our client, a well-established UK organisation operating in a complex, regulated environment, is investing significantly in its IT Service Management function following a major restructure. As part of this, they're looking for a Lead Service Manager to take end-to-end ownership of IT service quality for a key business directive - covering internal technology teams and a portfolio of third-party vendors and partners.

This is a genuinely business-facing role. You'll be the trusted point of contact between business stakeholders and IT, holding vendors to account on performance, driving service improvement (reactive and proactive), and ensuring commercial commitments - contracts, renewals, SLAs - land on time and deliver value.

What you'll be doing

- Owning service quality end-to-end across internal teams and outsourced/third-party vendors, including services where you're managing through SLAs and contractual levers rather than direct oversight
- Holding vendors accountable for performance, running corrective action plans where needed, and driving continuous improvement
- Taking commercial ownership of vendor contracts and renewals, ensuring nothing slips
- Acting as the primary business-facing point of contact for a defined directive, building trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels
- Playing an active role in incident and problem management, keeping stakeholders informed and addressing recurring issues at source
- Working closely with change delivery teams to ensure new or modified services transition smoothly into live support
- Representing service priorities and risk considerations within delivery roadmaps

What we're looking for

- A background in service management, ideally from an MSP, service transition, or incident/problem management environment
- Solid grounding in ITIL (Foundation level minimum)
- Strong commercial acumen - comfortable negotiating with vendors and managing contracts
- Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills - able to listen as well as drive outcomes
- Comfortable operating in a complex, regulated, fast-paced environment
- Financial services or other regulated-sector experience is a plus but not essential - we're equally interested in candidates from MSP, telecoms, retail or other complex service environments
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Office; Jira experience useful but not essential

What's on offer

- 65,000 - 90,000 base salary, depending on experience
- Car allowance
- Discretionary annual bonus of up to 20%
- Matched pension contribution
- Life assurance, private medical insurance, health screening
- 28 days holiday plus bank holidays, with a buy/sell scheme
- Hybrid working - 2 days in office (Coventry or Manchester), 3 days from home

This is a fast-moving process with a target start date ahead of a major business milestone in early September, so early applications are encouraged.

Interested? Apply now or get in touch for a confidential conversation about the role, closing date for application is Wed

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Impellam Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.