Sopra Steria
Service Operations Manager
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Are you a Service Operations Manager looking for your next challenge in a secure, complex and high-profile environment?
The work we do has a critical national purpose, helping to safeguard the UK by ensuring essential services remain resilient, reliable and protected. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in a complex, high-profile environment, where operational stability, strong leadership and continuous improvement are essential.
As Service Operations Manager, you will take ownership of the day-to-day operational delivery of core contracted services across a key customer account. Reporting to the Head of Service, you will ensure BAU services are delivered effectively, consistently and in line with customer expectations, service performance targets and contractual commitments.
This is a key leadership role, giving you the opportunity to lead a team of Service Delivery Managers and work closely with engineering, architecture, security and wider service teams. You will help bring structure, clarity and control to a complex service environment, while supporting operational improvement and ensuring services remain stable, well governed and customer focused.
The role will suit someone who enjoys leading people, managing live services, solving operational challenges and influencing how services are delivered. You will have the opportunity to shape ways of working, improve operational efficiency and contribute to the culture and growth of an important area of the business.
What you will be doing:
- Oversee the day-to-day BAU operation of core contracted services, ensuring services are delivered in line with SLAs, KPIs, quality standards and contractual commitments.
- Lead and manage a team of Service Delivery Managers, providing direction, support, development and clear operational priorities.
- Act as a key operational contact for the customer, ensuring clear communication, effective escalation management and timely resolution of service issues.
- Monitor service performance, resource levels and delivery risks, ensuring the right people, processes and controls are in place to maintain service stability.
- Work closely with engineering, architecture, security and service teams to improve ways of working, drive operational control and support consistent service delivery.
- Produce and oversee operational reporting, governance updates and service reviews for internal stakeholders, senior leadership and the customer.
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What you will bring:
- Proven experience in a Service Operations Manager, Senior Service Manager, Service Delivery Manager or similar IT service management role.
- Strong experience leading operational service teams, ideally including direct management of Service Delivery Managers or similar roles.
- Demonstrable experience managing live IT services within a contractual, SLA/KPI-driven environment.
- Strong understanding of service management principles, including incident, problem, change, risk and continual service improvement.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to provide clarity, influence others and manage customer expectations.
- Experience driving operational improvements, identifying inefficiencies and implementing leaner, more effective ways of working.
If you are interested in this role but not sure if your skills and experience are exactly what we’re looking for, please do apply, we’d love to hear from you!
Employment Type: Permanent
Location: Gloucestershire - on site full time
Security Clearance Level: eDV
Internal Recruiter: Josh
Salary: Competitive, dependent on experience
Benefits: Bonus, 25 days annual leave with the choice to buy extra 10 days, 3% flex fund benefit, £5,400 car allowance, AXA Medical Insurance, life assurance, and 6% pension
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If you’re interested and need to work flexibly, we encourage you to apply and talk to us about what might be possible.
Loved reading about this job and want to know more about us?
Sopra Steria’s Aerospace, Defence and Security business designs, develops and deploys digital solutions to Central Government clients. The work we do makes a real difference to the client’s goal of National Security, and we operate in a unique and privileged environment. We are given time for professional development activities, and we coach and mentor our colleagues, sharing knowledge and learning from each other. We foster a culture in which employees feel valued and supported and have pride in their work for the customer, delivering outstanding rates of customer satisfaction in the UK’s most complex safety- and security-critical markets.
We embrace difference as a source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage and are striving to become a more diverse organisation. We welcome applications from people with a diverse variety of backgrounds and identities. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status. We have partnered with Vercida, the UK's largest diversity and inclusion focused careers site, where all our vacancies are available in an accessible format.
If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, to enable you to perform to the best of your ability, please let us know when completing your application. We participate in the Disability Confident scheme and are committed to offering an interview to any candidate with a disability, who meets the minimum criteria for the role. If you believe this could apply to you, please let us know when completing your application.
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