Head of IT Service Management - IT Operations

Job summary

Have you got the skills and experience to set the vision and strategy for service management, within a complex organisation?

If so, continue reading to find out more about this fantastic opportunity to join the National Crime Agency (NCA) as it continues its digital and technology transformation.

This is a critical, high impact, leadership role within the Digital, Data and Technology Enterprise Services function. At the heart of delivering and managing a complex technology estate with a strong focus on service, delivery and innovation, this leadership role will ensure operational excellence, service readiness, continuous improvement, user centricity, and importantly, alignment with our strategic objectives and vision.

You will act as a role model to create a high performing, service driven and customer centric division. You will be accountable for delivering high-quality, customer-focused IT services working with partners and suppliers including service desk operations, corporate IT services, incident and problem management, change control, service performance monitoring, contract management and business relationship management.

This role links to the Service owner - Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework

Job description

As Head of IT Service Management – IT Operations, you will be responsible for setting the vision and strategy for service management, ensuring processes are owned and maturing.

You will lead a team ensuring adequate resources and capacity and represent the IT service management function at a senior level and act as an escalation point for business stakeholders.

You will ensure the provision of the organisational IT is well maintained, up to date, and secure. This is a 24-hour operation, working 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

You will work with suppliers to ensure our services are reliable, with high levels of availability, and affordable within our financial budgets. The team manages the movement of new services as they go live to users across the estate. The team also manage the performance of our suppliers in the daily provision of Services.

Duties and Responsibilities

Leadership - Lead and manage the IT Operations teams, making sure Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Operational Level Agreements (OLA) are in place and compliant, driving service continuity for a technology estate that is complex and includes significant proportion of legacy (technical debt).

Delivering Service Excellence - Design, own and oversee incident and problem management, service improvement initiatives, change management processes and performance reporting to enable data driven decisions to achieve service excellence.

Lead organisational changes - To become more digitally enabled, embedding agile ways of working alongside the management of legacy Technology and modern products & platforms including new functionality while protecting the integrity of existing service

Stakeholder Management - Be responsible for making sure that business relations within the organisation are managed to enable delivery of ICT services, collaborating with stakeholders to align IT services with business needs.

Lead, coach, and develop the IT Operations teams - To achieve higher performance, continuous improvement, driving digital adoption that balances legacy and agile approaches with a customer centric mindset and culture.

Person specification

Leadership - Highly engaging and service‑driven leader able to build trust and provide clear direction at a senior level within a complex, technology‑driven organisation. Proven leader of high‑performing teams, applying industry standards and best practice to continually improve services and deliver organisational value. Effective team leader with the ability to see the bigger picture, make sound decisions, and drive continuous improvement while maintaining high performance.

Operational and Service Excellence - Strong understanding of IT services, products, tools, methods, procedures and software used in the delivery and management of modern IT environments. Demonstrated ability to improve performance, drive service delivery excellence and lead turnaround activity in challenging or fast‑moving environments. Skilled service manager with a strong customer and end‑user focus, able to simplify processes and deliver efficiencies, particularly in complex or legacy IT environments.

Stakeholder Engagement and Communication - Excellent stakeholder engagement skills, able to work credibly with technology experts, senior leaders, customers and end users. Strong communicator with the ability to influence, gain buy‑in and adapt messaging for diverse audiences in high‑pressure or complex contexts.

Agile and Multi‑Disciplinary Team Working - Experienced in agile ways of working, enabling multi‑disciplinary teams to work flexibly and meet delivery standards. Proven ability to coordinate diverse skill sets and bring teams together to achieve effective delivery under tight or shifting timelines.

Qualifications

ITIL 4 Foundation qualification

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Changing and Improving
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £82,317, National Crime Agency contributes £23,847 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

New entrants to the NCA receive 26 days annual leave, rising to 31 on completion of 5 years continuous service, plus 8 bank holidays.

If qualifying criteria is met new joiners from UK Police Forces or the UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) will have service with those employers taken into account for continuous service purposes for annual leave entitlement only, this will be up to a maximum of 31 days leave (including 1 privilege day).

Other benefits include:

• Flexible working, including flexi-time, compressed hours and job sharing (in line with business requirements)
• Family friendly policies, notably above the statutory minimum
• Learning and Development opportunities
• Interest free loans and advances, including season tickets, childcare and rental deposits
• Housing schemes - Key Worker status
• Discounts and Savings with a wide variety of services including Cycle to Work, Smart Tech schemes, dental insurance, gym discounts and savings on everyday spending, available through the Reward Gateway , Edenred and Blue Light Card schemes.
• Staff support groups/networks
• Sports and social activities, including membership to the Civil Service Sports Council (CSSC)

Further information is available on the NCA Website.

Things you need to know

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.

How we will assess you

Your application will be assessed against the following:Experience - This will be assessed:

CV

Please include your full career history, training, qualifications, key responsibilities, and achievements. Explain any employment gaps in the last two years. Ensure all accreditation dates are accurate.

Details of what is expected within you CV are as follows: Your CV should provide a clear summary of your career history, highlighting roles, responsibilities and achievements relevant to this post. Please ensure you evidence the experience you can bring to this role, including service management across the end‑to‑end IT lifecycle, as well as experience in change, incident management, and service design and transition. Include your leadership experience, key skills and relevant qualifications.

Statement of Suitability

Please provide a 1000 word personal statement demonstrating how you meet the criteria below:

Please outline your wider skills, knowledge and experience, and explain how you meet the essential criteria for this role. Your statement should demonstrate your experience of managing IT services delivered by internal and external technical teams, as well as your experience across products, agile methodologies, service management, customer‑centric approaches and continuous improvement. Please draw on relevant examples from across the lifecycle, including service design, transition, change and incident management, and highlight the impact you have delivered and the value you would bring to this role.

A panel will assess how well your application demonstrates the requirements outlined above.

You will receive an acknowledgement once your application is submitted.

We aim to have sift completed and scores released within 10 working days of the closing date of the advert. For high volume campaigns this timeframe may be extended.

Scores will be provided but further feedback will not be available at this stage.

For guidance on the application process, visit:
NCA Applying and Onboarding

Assessment 1

The format of this assessment will be Interview which will be tested on the criteria listed in the Success Profiles at Assessment section.

Success Profiles at Assessment

Behaviours

• Leadership

• Changing and Improving

• Managing a Quality Service

Technical

• Experience in driving Continual Service Improvement by reviewing, analysing and enhancing IT services to meet changing business needs, boost efficiency and deliver measurable, data‑driven improvements aligned to organisational goals.
• 
  Experience in effective ITSM Problem Management, identifying root causes of incidents and implementing solutions to prevent recurrence, minimise impact and manage the full problem lifecycle in both proactive and reactive contexts.

Assessment OutcomeOutcomes will be communicated via the NCA recruitment portal.
If successful but no role is immediately available, you may be placed on a reserve list for 12 months.
Reserve lists can be used to fill similar role types across the Agency where the assessment criteria is considered a match by the recruitment team and the business area.

In the event of a tie at the assessment stage, available roles will be offered in merit order using the following order:

1. Lead criteria (behaviours/technical/experience)
2. If still tied, desirable criteria will be assessed (if advertised)
3. If still tied, application sift scores will be used

Feedback is provided only to those who attend an assessment.You will be subject to vetting and pre-employment checks before appointment.Once the vacancy closes, the advert will no longer be accessible. Please save a copy for your records. We encourage all candidates to visit the NCA Careers Page for more information.Prior to commencing the role, you will need to successfully complete SC Enhanced clearance and then achieve both DV Enhanced and DV STRAP clearance within the first 12 months in post. The requirement for SC clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years.The requirement for DV Enhanced clearance is to have been present in the UK for at least 7 of the last 10 years.To obtain DV STRAP you must be willing to undergo STRAP induction and must hold full UK nationality or dual nationality, where one component is British. Applications will be considered on a case by case basis.Failure to meet the residency requirements will result in your security clearance application being rejected.If the increased clearance cannot be obtained you will be moved to a role appropriate to your clearance level achieved on entry. For further information on National Security Vetting checks please visit the following page Demystifying VettingIndividuals will be required to undertake and pass a substance misuse test as part of pre-employment checks.

Occupational Health

Successful candidates will be expected to undertake an occupational health assessment. Depending on the role an in-person medical may be required in either London or Warrington. Unfortunately, travel costs will not be reimbursed.

Multi Location

Where multiple locations are advertised, appointments will be made in merit order per location.

Indicate your preferences clearly; you may be posted to any preferred location. If you decline a post at a location you selected, another offer may not be made.

Only advertised locations are available, any notes added to the application will not be considered.

Near Miss

If you meet the criteria for a lower grade, you may be offered that role if not appointable at the advertised grade.

Conversely, if found appointable at a higher grade but no posts are available, you may be offered a lower-grade role.

All offers are made based on merit.

Hybrid Working

The NCA supports hybrid working. The extent of remote working will depend on the role and can be discussed at the offer stage.

Reasonable Adjustments

We’re proud to be a Disability Confident Leader and an inclusive, equal opportunities employer.

We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone can be their authentic self. If you’re neurodiverse, have a disability, or live with a long-term health condition, we encourage you to let us know about any reasonable adjustments you may need during the recruitment process.

If you experience accessibility issues with the advert or require reasonable adjustments, please contact our Recruitment Team at Central.Recruitment@nca.gov.uk before the advert closing date.

Please ensure you complete the ‘Equal opportunities’ and 'Reasonable Adjustments' sections in the application form to inform us on what support you may need in the recruitment process.

For more on our Disability Confident commitment, visit Disability Confident Scheme , Civil Service Careers.

Visit NCA Benefits and Support for more details.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

Open to UK nationals only.

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk
• Email : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : central.recruitment@nca.gov.uk

Further information

If you believe your application has not been treated fairly, email: Central.Recruitment@nca.gov.uk (quoting the vacancy reference).
If unresolved, you may escalate your complaint to the Civil Service Commission.