Service Delivery Manager (Contract)

IT Service Delivery Manager - Contract

Location: Birmingham - Hybrid
Contract: Initial 6 months
IR35: Inside IR35
Rate: £300-£350/day, depending on experience
Working Pattern: Initially onsite during onboarding, moving to 3 days per week onsite

The Role

We are looking for an experienced IT Service Delivery Manager to take ownership of the day-to-day delivery of IT services within a large, operationally critical environment.

This is primarily a service management and operational leadership role, rather than a major transformation position. You will inherit an established service and be responsible for ensuring it continues to operate effectively, maintaining strong service levels, managing the support function and driving continual improvement where required. This reflects the hiring manager's requirement to manage the existing environment following the organisation's recent major technology change.

Key Responsibilities

• Take accountability for end-to-end IT Service Delivery, covering Service Desk, second-line support, application support and wider operational services.
• Lead and develop technical support teams, including performance management, appraisals, staff development and recruitment.
• Manage and continually improve core ITIL processes, including Incident, Problem, Change, Request and Service Management.
• Monitor service performance against agreed SLAs, KPIs and OLAs, identifying risks and driving improvements where required.
• Ensure incidents and service requests are effectively managed and escalated, minimising disruption to live operational services.
• Manage relationships with third-party suppliers and technology partners, ensuring appropriate performance, service quality and value for money.
• Support Change Management and service transition, ensuring changes are appropriately governed and risks to live services are controlled.
• Drive Continual Service Improvement, strengthening processes, documentation, knowledge management and operational effectiveness.
• Work closely with technical teams, suppliers, senior management and business stakeholders to ensure IT services continue to meet operational requirements.
• Support the management of core enterprise systems and platforms. Experience within Microsoft/Azure environments would be beneficial, with exposure to Oracle Fusion particularly advantageous.

Essential Experience

• Minimum 3 years' experience in an IT Service Delivery Manager, IT Service Manager or closely related role, as specifically requested by the hiring manager.
• Strong operational IT Service Management experience.
• Practical experience across Incident, Problem and Change Management.
• Experience managing Service Desk/support teams and developing technical staff.
• Strong understanding of SLAs, KPIs, OLAs and service-performance reporting.
• Experience managing third-party suppliers and external service providers.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Experience managing risk and protecting live IT services during change.
• Demonstrable experience delivering service improvements within an established IT environment.

Qualifications

A recognised ITIL qualification is essential, ideally ITIL v4 / the latest available version. Higher-level ITIL qualifications would be advantageous but are not essential.

Desirable

Experience within public sector, emergency services, local government or another operationally critical/regulated organisation would be particularly relevant.

Previous exposure to Microsoft technologies, Azure, Oracle Fusion, service transition, supplier management and critical operational systems would also be advantageous. The hiring manager was clear that deep technical expertise is not required; the priority is someone who understands IT environments and has genuinely managed a service.

Additional requirements: The successful contractor will be required to complete relevant pre-employment checks, including a DBS check.