IT Service Manager

Job summary

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

1. joining up public sector services
2. harnessing the power of AI for the public good
3. strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
4. elevating leadership and investing in talent
5. funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
6. committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need

Job description

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

As an IT Service Manager supporting One Login, you will play a key role in helping deliver a high-quality, consistent and reliable service experience for relying parties across government. Working within an established service management model, you will support senior service managers in ensuring that services adopting One Login can effectively onboard, operate and continuously improve.

You will contribute to the day-to-day operation and improvement of service management practices across onboarding, live service and ongoing optimisation. This includes supporting service reporting, stakeholder engagement, process adherence and continuous improvement activities.

You will work closely with teams across Product, Architecture, Service Transition, Operational Support, Data and Security, ensuring that service considerations are effectively represented and operationalised within delivery and live service environments.

In addition, you will act as a supporting conduit between service management and delivery teams, helping to ensure that priorities are translated into action and that improvements are effectively coordinated. You may take on elements of business analysis and project coordination, supporting delivery tracking, managing actions, and helping to ensure that the One Login service model is implemented and embedded consistently.

This role provides an opportunity to build experience across the full-service lifecycle while contributing to a large-scale, national digital service.

As an IT Service Manager you’ll:

• support the delivery of a consistent, high‑quality service experience, contributing to service monitoring, performance tracking, resilience and the application of service standards across the lifecycle, with a clear focus on user outcomes
• coordinate service management activities across onboarding, transition and live service, ensuring service management frameworks are applied consistently and that priorities, risks and actions are effectively managed and delivered
• build and maintain effective stakeholder relationships across relying parties and internal teams, understanding needs, managing expectations and contributing to service reviews, governance and operational forums
• contribute to service reporting, performance insight and decision-making, producing and analysing service data to identify trends, risks and opportunities, and support informed, data-driven improvements
• coordinate incident, problem and continual service improvement activities, supporting service restoration, root cause analysis and the delivery of improvements that enhance service performance, resilience and user experience
• act as a coordination point across service management and delivery teams, translating requirements into actions, tracking progress, managing dependencies and risks, and supporting the adoption of service practices, tools and operational standards

Person specification

We're interested in people who:

• have a working understanding of service management principles, capability elements of ITIL and the service management lifecycle, with the ability to apply this knowledge within established processes and frameworks across onboarding, transition and live services
• can demonstrate strong organisational, coordination and planning skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities, track activity and work within a strategic context to communicate how structured delivery of work aligns with strategic goals
• can communicate effectively and build positive working relationships across teams, engaging stakeholders, collaborating with others and contributing to a supportive and high-performing team environment, using evidence to explain decisions made
• are data-aware and able to support service performance reporting and insight, using data about users to turn user focus into outcomes, identifying trends, issues and opportunities that can inform service improvement
• show a proactive approach to service quality and continuous improvement, identifying risks, issues and dependencies, escalating where needed, contributing to problem solving and working with stakeholders to identify objectives and potential benefits

Benefits

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for the King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• death in service benefits
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

Any move to Government Digital Service from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare. Determine your eligibility at https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk

Office attendance
The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.
DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

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

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 750 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a 60 minute Google meet video interview

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In the event we receive a high volume of applications, we will conduct the initial sift against the lead criteria which is:

• have a working understanding of service management principles, capability elements of ITIL and the service management lifecycle, with the ability to apply this knowledge within established processes and frameworks across onboarding, transition and live services

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Civil Service Behaviours:

• communicating and influencing
• managing a quality service
• delivering at pace
• changing and improving
• working together

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Capability Framework for the IT Service Manager role:

• IT service reporting
• ownership and initiative
• service focus
• service management framework knowledge
• stakeholder relationship management (IT operations)
• continual service reporting
• technical understanding
• user focus

Want to know more about who Government Digital and Data are? Click Here

Recruitment Timeline

Sift completion: week commencing Monday 6th July 2026

Panel interviews: starting week commencing Monday 13th July 2026

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

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.

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.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).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 : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk
• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : gdsrecruitment@dsit.gov.uk

Further information

If you feel your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles and you wish to make a complaint, you should contact gds-complaints@dsit.gov.uk in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with the response you receive you can contact the Civil Service Commission by email: info@csc.gov.uk Or in writing: Civil Service Commission, Room G/8 1 Horse Guards Road, London, SW1A 2HQ.