Job summary

Do you have hands-on leadership experience in IT Service Management within complex, large‑scale organisations?

Do you have the ability to lead the work of engineering teams in maintaining and improving critical services through high‑pressure operational and strategic challenges?

Are you able to communicate effectively at senior levels with business and technical stakeholders alike?

If so, we would love to hear from you.

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here

25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday

Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency - Department for Transport Careers

Job description

As a Lead IT Service Manager at DVLA, you will provide senior leadership and accountability for all aspects of IT Service Management (ITSM) across one of DVLA’s three major service towers: Drivers, Vehicles or Core (underpinning services or those spanning Drivers and Vehicles). You will act as the senior focal point for your tower, ensuring services are delivered effectively, efficiently and in line with industry best practice.

You will be accountable for IT service ownership across a large and diverse portfolio of services, including responsibility for the effective and efficient operation of fourteen distinct ITSM practices / functions, ensuring continual alignment to evolving industry best practice.

For the most business‑critical and complex services, you will act directly as the IT Service Manager, providing hands‑on leadership and expert judgement. You will lead major cross‑functional activities involving engineering teams, delivery teams, operational and non‑operational business areas, and third‑party suppliers.

You will lead and mentor senior ITSM professionals within your tower, building a strong, multi‑skilled capability with a culture of accountability, collaboration and continual improvement. You will also act as a senior escalation point for service risks and issues, representing ITSM at senior forums across the Agency and externally.

This role is at the heart of ensuring the availability, performance, security and continual improvement of DVLA’s IT services, many of which are business‑critical, public‑facing and nationally significant.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

Provide direct, hands-on leadership for the most business critical and / or highest complexity ITSM activities arising from all work across your service tower. This includes major cross-functional / matrix leadership of resources spanning all ITS capabilities, other DVLA directorates (operational and non-operational) and external partner / supplier organisations.

Be accountable for the overall line management and mentorship of all resources within your service tower. Work with other Lead IT Service Managers to re-assign resources between the services towers as required, according to both day-to-day operational ITSM demands, e.g. Incident and Change, alongside strategic, longer-term work such as Service Architecture and Transition.

Ensure that your team holds holistic knowledge of all services within its tower, i.e. their business purpose and context, underpinning technology, support model and stakeholders. For the most business critical services, hold this knowledge yourself.

Hold and proactively maintain expert level knowledge of ITSM industry best practice, staying abreast of evolving industry trends including how ITSM interfaces with other modern industry philosophies adopted at DVLA, such as DevOps and Agile. Be accountable for disseminating and ensuring application of this throughout all work within your service tower.

Hold a thorough understanding of technical concepts, sufficient to lead major cross-functional efforts involving lead / senior engineering resources, making effective ITSM decisions based on significant levels of technical information.

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills they need. We aim to empower line managers to create teams where people can flourish and deliver excellent outcomes for the public.

For further information on the role, please read the attached role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

Person specification

Required experience:

To be successful in this role you will need to have the following experience:

Senior‑level experience in IT Service Management, with expert knowledge of modern industry best practice and a strong track record of applying it pragmatically within a complex organisation.

Managing portfolios of IT services, including leading critical incidents, complex change and service improvement initiatives. You will be comfortable operating as a senior decision maker, balancing technical risk, service availability, customer impact and organisational priorities.

An experienced leader who can inspire, develop and mentor ITSM teams, while also exercising strong cross‑functional leadership across engineering, delivery, business and supplier communities.

Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the confidence to influence decisions at senior leadership and Executive level, and to clearly articulate service risks, impacts and options to technical and non‑technical audiences alike.

Additional Information

The following qualifications should be held, or willing to work towards once in post:

ITIL v5 Foundation

Certified Agile Service Manager

DevOps Institute: DevOps Foundation

DevOps Institute: Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Foundation

Working for the DVLA Digital Team

At DVLA, licensing is just the start. Every project you implement, touch and deliver has a ripple effect that’ll wash across the nation. Here the work you’re doing has the capacity to change the way 53 million people interact with our services. As we aim to keep our roads some of the safest in the world, our innovative, transformative digital-led services help optimise a nation of individuals and business every single day.

To see how our people are transforming our digital services, head over to our DVLA Digital Services Blog and, to understand more about the great opportunities and benefits of working at DVLA read our Inside DVLA blog.

Working hours, office attendance and travel requirements

Full time roles consist of 37 hours per week. Part time and/or flexible working may also be available subject to the needs of the business.

This role is suitable for hybrid working, which is a non-contractual arrangement where a combination of workplace and home-based working can be accommodated subject to business requirements.

The expectation at present is a minimum of 60% of your working time a month will be spent at either your designated workplace (one of the locations cited in the advert) or, when required for business reasons, in another office/work location. There may be occasions where you are required to attend above the minimum expectation.

If you have a question about hybrid working, part time/job share hours, flexible working or require a reasonable adjustment, please contact the Vacancy Holder during the recruitment process to avoid possible disappointment later in the process should your working arrangements not be compatible with the requirements of the role (see below for contact details).

Visa Sponsorship

Please note that we do not hold a UK Visa & Immigration (UKVI) Skilled Worker Licence sponsor and are unable to sponsor any individuals for Skilled Worker Sponsorship. Candidates must ensure they have the appropriate rights to work in the UK before application.

Behaviours

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

Leadership

Managing a Quality Service

Technical skills

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

Service Management Framework Knowledge - Expert

Stakeholder Relationship Management (IT Operations) - Expert

Technical Understanding - Practitioner