Head of Digital Services

Head of Digital Services

Location: Manchester (hybrid)
Salary: up to £80,000 (dependant on experience)

Are you an experienced digital services leader who can shape, elevate, and deliver a high-performing IT service function? We're looking for a Head of Digital Services to lead the end-to-end delivery of IT services across a large, complex organisation-driving service excellence, operational resilience, and a customer-centric culture.

About the Role

As Head of Digital Services, you will be accountable for the performance, reliability and continual improvement of all IT services used across the organisation. Leading a multi-disciplinary Digital Service function, you will ensure that staff, students and stakeholders receive a high-quality experience across end-user compute, service desk, operations management and incident/problem resolution.

You will play a key role in the senior Digital/IT leadership team-helping shape service strategy, guiding service design and transition activities, and aligning service delivery with wider organisational goals.

This is an exciting opportunity to modernise and mature digital service capability, uplift service culture, and create a more responsive, customer-focused model in a 24/7 operational environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the Digital Service function, setting a clear service vision and embedding a culture of customer focus and continual improvement.
• Ensure effective and efficient delivery of all IT services, both internally managed and delivered by third-party partners.
• Oversee the resolution of major incidents and problems, minimising disruption and ensuring operational stability.
• Translate organisational needs into clear service requirements, acting as a trusted advisor to senior stakeholders.
• Collaborate with the wider IT leadership team to shape service design, governance and service portfolio decisions.
• Develop and implement sourcing strategies and manage strategic vendor and partner relationships.
• Forecast and develop digital service workforce capabilities, ensuring the right mix of skills and competencies.
• Lead and mentor service management teams to foster excellence, high performance and accountability.
• Contribute to creating an inclusive, collaborative and innovative working culture.

About You

You will bring significant experience leading IT service functions in large, customer-centric environments. You'll be ITIL-savvy, confident in managing complex operations, and highly effective at building relationships across technical and non-technical audiences.

You'll be equally comfortable developing service strategy as you are ensuring operational excellence, with the ability to steer teams through change while keeping customer experience at the heart of delivery.

What We're Looking For

• Proven leadership experience within IT service delivery, service management or operations.
• Strong incident, problem and change management expertise.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills.
• Experience working with third-party suppliers and managing strategic vendor relationships.
• A continuous-improvement mindset, with the ability to drive cultural and operational transformation.
• Ability to operate and lead effectively within a 24/7 digital service environment.

If you are an experienced Head of Digital Service, looking for your next challenge, then I would like to hear from you.

Please apply directly, and if your application is successful, one of the team will be in touch to discuss next steps.