Associate Director – Head of Applications Support

Job Summary

You will lead the service, support, governance and continuous improvement of Mace’s enterprise applications portfolio outside the dedicated HR and Finance systems domains. Covering a diverse landscape of SaaS, on-premises and bespoke applications and their integrations, you will work at the intersection of business functions, IT, architecture, security and external vendors, alongside peers responsible for HR and Finance systems, to ensure these systems are stable, secure, well controlled and aligned to business priorities. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who can combine strong IT service management disciplines with broad application expertise, effective stakeholder partnership and a clear focus on business outcomes.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Act as the senior application owner for Mace’s enterprise applications portfolio outside the dedicated HR and Finance systems domains, ensuring systems are supported and governed in line with business needs, audit requirements and enterprise IT standards.
• Lead service delivery across the application portfolio and its integrations, defining, monitoring and improving service KPIs, support processes, incident resolution, problem management and escalation routes.
• Take responsibility for the effective adoption, operation and continuous improvement of ITIL processes across the Digital team, including incident, problem, change, request, knowledge and service transition practices.
• Partner with business application owners, IT Security, Enterprise Architecture, Digital PMO, service management teams and third-party delivery partners to prioritise demand, shape roadmaps and deliver controlled improvements across the application estate.
• Work closely with peers responsible for HR and Finance systems to align service standards, change governance, integration dependencies, data flows, risk management and cross-portfolio priorities.
• Own the change roadmap for applications within scope, including release management, configuration and development changes, regression testing, user acceptance testing, stakeholder communications and transition into support.
• Oversee interfaces and integrations across enterprise applications, working with technical architects and specialist teams to manage dependencies, resilience, monitoring and end-to-end service performance.
• Drive automation, standardisation and process improvement across application support, reducing manual effort and improving consistency, user experience, resilience and operational control.
• Maintain strong vendor and managed service relationships, leading service reviews, managing performance, tracking actions and holding suppliers to account for delivery and continuous improvement.
• Lead compliance activity across the application estate, supporting ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, internal and external audit, access reviews, licence compliance and wider risk management requirements.
• Work with IT Security and application owners to strengthen security posture, including vulnerability remediation, appropriate access controls, patching, data protection and recovery arrangements.
• Identify, assess and manage application risks, technical debt, lifecycle issues and service dependencies, ensuring clear ownership, mitigation plans and escalation where required.
• Ensure documentation, knowledge articles, support guides, process maps, technical records and operational runbooks are maintained and accessible to support teams and business users.
• Contribute to application strategy and portfolio planning, helping shape target operating models, rationalisation priorities, lifecycle decisions and future support arrangements.
• Support delivery of application projects, upgrades, integrations and business transformation initiatives, ensuring appropriate governance, testing and transition processes are followed.
• Provide leadership and direction through internal colleagues, delivery partners and/or managers, creating clarity on priorities, standards and accountabilities.