Office for National Statistics
Senior IT Service Manager
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The locations for this role are Newport and Titchfield (Fareham).
This role is aligned to ONS hybrid working principles, which are based on attending the office with purpose. The post holder will be expected to contribute to the organisation’s overall 40% office attendance, in line with business and role requirements.
The induction process for the role will be conducted in person.
Job Summary
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime and migration.
Our Digital Services (DS) Directorate develops and operates much of the technology and service that ONS uses to deliver. Demand for data and statistics are increasing, and DS has a critical role in enabling the business to meet these demands.
We are seeking an experienced Senior IT Service Manager to join the Statistical Business Register division within the Digital Services Directorate.
The Statistical Business Register (SBR) is currently being developed to replace the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The SBR will hold a comprehensive list of UK businesses and will be used as the main sampling frame for surveys of businesses carried out by ONS and other government departments. It will be made up by a collection of different products. The transition from IDBR to SBR will be delivered through a number of different transition phases.
Job Description
In this role as a Senior IT Service Manager for SBR and will be heavily involved in the development of the support wrapper needed for the service when it starts its operational journey later this year. The IT Service Manager will be responsible for ensuring that the support processes and procedures are owned and matured inline with the different transition phases. They will be responsible for ensuring adequate resources and capacity is available across the relevant support teams to provide a comprehensive support wrapper for SBR. This includes user support, incident and problem management as well as standard maintenance, etc.
Responsibilities
- Lead the delivery of secure, reliable and high-performing IT services that meet business needs and organisational priorities.
- Provide strategic leadership to technical teams, service functions and third-party suppliers, ensuring accountability, performance and service excellence.
- Own and govern IT Service Management processes, including incident, request, change, release, asset and configuration management.
- Establish, manage and report on SLAs, OLAs and KPIs, using performance data and management information to drive improvements.
- Act as a senior escalation point for major incidents and service issues, ensuring timely resolution and minimal disruption to live services.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with stakeholders, delivery teams and suppliers to ensure services remain aligned with organisational requirements.
- Manage day-to-day service delivery while balancing operational performance, risk, service improvement and project delivery activities.
- Drive continual service improvement through automation, data analysis, user feedback, best practice sharing and effective governance and compliance.
- Manage service risk, resilience and performance, acting as a senior escalation point for major incidents while ensuring robust reporting, compliance and informed decision-making.
Person Specification
Essential Criteria:
Strategic Leadership, Stakeholder Relationship Management – A strong and proactive leader with broad technical understanding, capable of leading multi-disciplinary teams, driving continuous improvement, and developing team capability and performance. They will provide strategic leadership and clear direction across IT service functions, developing service strategies, driving organisational change, and ensuring services align with business objectives. They will build, manage, and influence relationships across organisational boundaries, including senior stakeholders and 3rd party suppliers, acting as a senior escalation point, shaping engagement strategies, and fostering effective collaboration to achieve successful business and service outcomes.
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User Focus – demonstrate a real drive and passion for excellent user experience, employee enablement and continuous improvement by leading service excellence and user-focused delivery, applying insight into evolving user needs, selecting effective tools and methods, and ensuring high-quality services are delivered across multiple channels.
Business Analysis - Able to identify risks, owning and providing plans for mitigation, considering the impact on the wider organisation. They will use data, analytics and business insight to inform decisions, monitor service performance, evaluate risks, identify trends, and drive improvements that enhance business outcomes.
Ownership & Initiative - A driven individual, that takes accountability for issues that occur, through to resolution and is proactive in searching for potential problems and analysing trends. They will also own service risks, issues and continuous improvement activities, implementing mitigations, improving resilience, and proactively identifying opportunities to optimise services.
Apply a strategic view across the wider service landscape, balancing operational delivery with long-term service development, team performance, governance requirements, and organisational priorities.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Working Together
- Managing a Quality Service
- Leadership
- Communicating and Influencing
- Changing and Improving
Alongside your salary of £56,861, Office for National Statistics contributes £16,472 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).
The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.
Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.
Inclusion & Accessibility
At ONS we are always looking to attract the very best people from the widest possible talent pool, and we are proud to be an inclusive, equal opportunities employer. As a Disability Confident Leader we’re committed to ensuring that all candidates are treated fairly throughout the recruitment process.
As part of our application process, you will be prompted to provide details of any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment process that you need. If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments before applying, please contact the recruitment team in the first instance.
If you would like an accessible version of any of the attachments or recruitment documents below or linked to in this advert, please contact the recruitment team who will be happy to assist.
ONS are committed to flexible ways of working that support a healthy work-life balance. ONS has already considered how this job could be right sized for applicants working flexibly and we are happy to explore options with you about working part time, in a job share or flexibly, in line with our hybrid working policies.
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Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.
Selection process details
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.
Security Clearance
For ONS the requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for 3 consecutive years immediately prior to applying and the department will consider eligibility by exception on a case-by-case basis. You will be asked to provide information regarding your UK residency during your application, and failure to provide this will result in your application being rejected.
If you are unsure that you meet the eligibility above, please read the information available on Gov.uk on this link or contact the recruitment email on the advert before applying, as failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected and any offer of employment being withdrawn.
At the point of SC application, you will need to provide or give access to the following evidence:
- Departmental or company records (personnel files, staff reports, sick leave reports and security records)
- UK criminal records covering both spent and unspent criminal records
- Your credit and financial history with a credit reference agency
- Security Services records
Please note we will reach out to you once the advert has closed to confirm eligibility for this role, this will be via an e-mail. Please check your junk e-mails for any correspondence.
Visa Sponsorship
ONS can offer visa sponsorship as part of this recruitment campaign. However, applicants must still hold valid right to work in the UK at the point employment commences.
To work at the ONS, candidates must meet both UK right to work and security clearance requirements (where applicable).
If you are unsure whether you meet the appropriate right to work or security clearance eligibility criteria, please refer to the guidance on Gov.uk or contact the recruitment email provided in the advert before applying. Failure to meet these requirements will result in your application being rejected and employment offers being withdrawn.
Application Process
Number of Stages: 2 stage process
Stage 1: Application
Stage 2: Interview
Stage 1 – Application
The assessment process at the application stage will be based on your work history, CV, skills, experience, and personal statement. It is important that your application is tailored to highlight the skills, knowledge, and experience relevant to the role.
A personal statement is required at application stage, the maximum word count allowed is 1250, which should not be exceeded. You should provide evidence for each essential skill criterion listed in the person specification. As these criteria are scored, it is advisable to give clear examples for each one, including the impact of your actions, ideally utilising the STAR technique (
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