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Job summary

UKRI
Salary: £70,752 per annum.
Band: UKRI Band G.
Contract Type: Open ended.
Hours: Full-time/ Part Time (minimum 0.8 FTE) (flexible working available).
Location: Polaris House, Swindon, Wiltshire - Hybrid working available.

Closing Date: Sunday 2nd August 2026

Job description

About the role

The Head of Service Delivery is a senior leadership role with accountability for the performance, resilience and governance of live IT and business-critical services across corporate hub and most UKRI head office functions. Operating across a complex, federated, multi-supplier environment, the role provides strategic direction and operational leadership to ensure that services are stable, secure, responsive to business need and aligned to organisational priorities.

The postholder will lead the development of a high-performing service delivery function, bringing together service management, supplier governance, operational assurance and continual improvement. The role requires confident engagement with senior partners across Digital, Corporate Services and the wider organisation, with the ability to influence across organisational boundaries and deliver outcomes where direct line authority may not exist. The postholder will translate service performance, risk and technical issues into clear business insight and ensure that critical services support UKRI's operational effectiveness and strategic objectives.

Your responsibilities:

• Provide senior leadership for the end-to-end delivery of live IT and business-critical services, ensuring clear service ownership, strong performance management and effective operational governance.
• Establish and maintain a robust service delivery framework that supports resilience, service quality, risk management and continuous improvement across a diverse technology and supplier landscape.
• Lead the organisational response to major service issues, providing strategic oversight, clear decision making and effective communication during high-impact incidents and service recovery activity.
• Oversee change, release and service transition governance, ensuring that new and changed services are introduced in a controlled manner with appropriate operational readiness and minimal disruption to users.
• Drive strong supplier and partner management, holding internal and external providers to account for delivery, performance, compliance and service improvement outcomes.
• Provide governance and assurance for critical enterprise and research funding platforms, ensuring that services supporting corporate operations and the research community remain reliable, supportable and aligned to business priorities.
• Lead service reporting and performance insight, using data, trend analysis and service metrics to inform decision making, support assurance and drive measurable improvements in user experience and service effectiveness.
• Provide leadership on service risk, continuity and disaster recovery, ensuring that critical services are resilient and that recovery arrangements are tested, understood and fit for purpose.
• Contribute to the wider strategic leadership of Digital services, shaping service management standards, organisational capability and the maturity of service delivery practices across UKRI.
• Lead and develop teams and specialist functions within the service delivery area, fostering accountability, collaboration and a culture of high performance.
• Provide executive-level service assurance and governance reporting, ensuring senior leaders have clear visibility of operational risk, service health, compliance and strategic improvement activity.
• Provide executive leadership for operational resilience, disaster recovery and service continuity arrangements, ensuring critical services are recoverable, regularly tested and aligned to organisational risk appetite.
• Lead cross-supplier service integration and act as part of the intelligent customer function, ensuring end-to-end accountability across interconnected service providers and platforms.
  

Technology and Process experience and delivery

• Significant experience of leading IT service delivery in large, complex, federated organisations with multiple suppliers, diverse partners and a broad portfolio of live operational services.
• Solid understanding of service management disciplines, including incident, major incident, problem, change, release, transition and service level management, with the ability to embed proportionate governance and good practice.
• Demonstrable experience of delivering services within enterprise and SaaS environments, including business-critical platforms such as ERP, corporate applications, cloud-based services and user-facing digital platforms.
• Experience of establishing service performance frameworks, including the use of SLAs, OLAs, KPIs, dashboards and management information to drive accountability and improvement.
• Solid understanding of supplier governance, commercial oversight and contract performance management, with the ability to lead constructive challenge and ensure delivery against agreed outcomes.
  Experience of service continuity, operational resilience, disaster recovery planning and audit or assurance activity in a complex service environment.
• Understanding of service asset, software licensing and configuration management processes, with an appreciation of their role in service stability, compliance and cost control.
• Ability to translate technical and operational issues into practical business impact, supporting senior leaders to make informed decisions on service priorities, risk and investment.
• Evidence of leading service delivery transformation, including evolving operating models, governance, capabilities and ways of working, beyond the optimisation of existing services.

Person specification

The below criteria will be scored during Shortlisting (S), Interview (I) or both (S&I).

Essential

• Demonstrable passion for Service Management, with extensive experience applying Service Management and agile methodologies and models across a range of services within varying environments (S&I).
• Ability to provide visible and credible leadership during high-pressure operational situations, including major incidents, service disruption and executive-level escalations (S&I).
• Strong strategic thinking and judgement, with a clear understanding of how current work fits into broader Enterprise Services contexts and strategies so that deeper underlying problems and opportunities can be identified, addressed and managed appropriately (S&I).
• Strong analytical and financial management skills, with responsibility for service spending, ensuring actual costs remain within budget and actively managing any over or underspend (S&I).
• Demonstrable experience of leading and developing teams, building capability and creating an inclusive, accountable and high-performing culture. (S&I)
• Proven ability to influence across organisational boundaries, align stakeholders and drive service outcomes in complex environments where authority is shared or indirect (S&I).
• ITIL 5 Foundation qualification, with higher-level strategic ITIL certification or equivalent professional experience highly desirable (S).
• Knowledge of recognised service management and assurance standards, such as ISO/IEC 20000, and an understanding of their practical application (S).
• Relevant experience of enterprise service environments, including ERP or similarly critical business platforms, would be advantageous (S)
  

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £70,752, UK Research and Innovation contributes £20,496 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).

We recognise and value our employees as individuals and aim to provide a favourable pay and rewards package. We are committed to supporting employees' development and promote a culture of continuous learning!

A list of benefits below:

• An outstanding defined benefit pension scheme.
• 30 days' annual leave in addition to 10.5 public and privilege days (full time equivalent).
• Employee discounts and offers on retail and leisure activities.
• Employee assistance programme, providing confidential help and advice.
• Flexible working options.
  

Plus many more benefits and wellbeing initiatives that enable our employees to have a great work life balance!

For further information on our benefits please see:
Benefits of working at UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)

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

How to apply

Please submit a CV and covering letter (Covering letter should be no longer than 500 words) which clearly outlines how you fulfil the criteria specified along with your motivation for UKRI and the role. Ensure that the job reference number is included in the filename description of each document uploaded. Note that failure to address the above criteria or submit an application without a covering letter may result in the application not being considered. Assessment will only be based upon the content of your submitted covering letter and CV and not the ‘experience’ section of the application.

If we receive a high volume of applications, we reserve the right to assess candidates against one of the essential criteria.

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 rejected.

UKRI is an Equal Opportunity & Disability Confident Employer.

Please apply online, if you experience any issue applying, please contact Recruitment@ukri.org

Please note, if you will require sponsorship to work in the UK, as part of your sponsorship application, you and any dependants travelling with you, will be required to pay costs directly to The Home Office for the application before you start your role with us. UKRI is normally able to reimburse some, or all of these fees after you have become an employee and this can be discussed with the Hiring Manager. For more information, please visit https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/how-much-it-costs or contact Recruitment@ukri.org.

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.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

Please note this Post is NOT regulated by the Civil Service Commission.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

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 : UKRI Recruitment Team
• Email : Recruitment@ukri.org

Recruitment team

• Email : Recruitment@ukri.org