Senior Service Manager - Active UK Government Security Clearance

Senior Service Manager - Active UK Government Security Clearance Required

Location: UK - Hybrid / customer-site requirements TBC
Contract: 6-month contract, with view to extend
Day Rate: £600 - £650 per day, Inside IR35
Start: ASAP / TBC

About Appvia

Appvia is a specialist cloud, platform, and solutions engineering consultancy, helping organisations modernise infrastructure, improve reliability, and adopt cloud-native practices that enable long-term, sustainable delivery.

Our engineering capability spans AWS, Azure, platform engineering, networking, software, data, AI, delivery, and managed services.

We work across complex, high-impact environments in both the public and private sector, where security, resilience, operational excellence, and service quality are critical.

About the Role

We're looking for an experienced Senior Service Manager to join Appvia on a secure public sector engagement, taking ownership of service performance across a live, mission-critical operational environment.

This is a hands-on service management role with a strong ITIL and SIAM-aligned, multi-supplier focus. You'll be responsible for ensuring the service operates effectively day-to-day, with ownership of ticket performance, SLA adherence, service governance, financial and commercial performance, and the wider service wrapper.

You'll work closely with technical teams, service management functions, suppliers, and senior customer stakeholders to make sure issues are progressed effectively, operational commitments and budgets are met, and the service continues to improve. You'll also play a role in mentoring more junior members of the service management team.

This is a great opportunity for someone who enjoys bringing structure, accountability, and commercial rigour to complex operational environments, while working closely with both technical and customer-facing teams.

Interview Process - 2 Stage

1. Discovery conversation with Talent Acquisition
2. Final interview with Appvia / customer-facing leadership

Important

You must hold active UK Security Clearance (SC). NPPV3 is highly desirable.

About You

You are an experienced Senior Service Manager with strong ITIL and SIAM knowledge, and a track record of managing live services in complex, mission-critical, or regulated environments.

You will bring:

• Strong experience in ITIL-aligned service management and governance
• Understanding of SIAM, Lean, Agile, and DevOps principles within a product-centric delivery model
• Experience owning service performance and operational outcomes
• Strong understanding of SLAs, KPIs, ticket management, and service reporting
• Experience managing the service wrapper across technical teams, suppliers, and customer stakeholders
• Strong incident, problem, and change management experience, including major/high-severity incident handling
• Experience working with third-party suppliers and multiple delivery teams, holding suppliers to account against agreed service and contractual commitments
• Experience managing the cost and budget of live services, identifying financial risks early and recognising opportunities to improve value for money
• Experience identifying, managing, and escalating service risks appropriately
• Experience mentoring or supporting the development of more junior service management colleagues
• Confidence engaging with senior customer and technical stakeholders
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities
• A proactive, structured, and commercially aware approach
• Experience working within law enforcement, emergency services, public safety, or other mission-critical, security-conscious environments
• Active UK SC clearance

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day service management and operational performance
• Ensure tickets and incidents are managed effectively and within agreed SLAs
• Lead the response to major and high-severity incidents
• Monitor service performance, identify trends, and drive corrective action
• Own and maintain the wider service wrapper, ensuring clear accountability across teams and suppliers
• Manage service budgets and costs, identifying financial risks early and opportunities for value for money
• Identify, manage, and escalate service risks appropriately
• Lead service reviews, reporting, and governance activities
• Coordinate incident, problem, and change management across the service
• Work with technical teams to ensure operational issues are understood, prioritised, and resolved
• Manage relationships with customer stakeholders and third-party suppliers, acting as an escalation point for supplier performance
• Mentor and support the development of more junior service management team members
• Identify service risks, dependencies, and opportunities for continuous improvement
• Maintain service documentation, processes, and operational procedures
• Provide clear reporting on service health, performance, risks, and actions
• Support strong governance and ensure contractual/service commitments are being met

Technical / Service Management Skills

Core:

• ITIL / IT Service Management
• SIAM (Service Integration and Management) / multi-supplier service management
• SLA and KPI management
• Incident, Problem & Change Management, including major incident management
• Financial and budget management for live services
• Service risk management
• Service reporting and governance
• Ticket management and operational performance
• Customer and stakeholder management
• Service improvement and continual service improvement

Nice to have:

• ITIL 4 certification
• Formal line management or team leadership experience
• Public sector, government, defence, or law enforcement / emergency services experience
• Experience within an MSP or managed-service environment
• Experience managing complex technical services
• Awareness of network and cloud technologies underpinning a service (e.g. SD-WAN, Azure, AWS)
• NPPV3 clearance

Why Join Appvia?

We are a self-funded, London based startup; providing businesses with a fast and secure way to deploy containerised applications into the cloud.

We are on a mission to enable organisations to make cloud-based software delivery simple and efficient, whilst having the insights into costs, security and cadence. As a company that holds customers at the heart of everything we do, we are looking for candidates that want to make a real change to how Dev and Ops is working in the industry.
With us our customers, like the UK’s Home Office & Bank of England, are harnessing cloud-native technologies, limiting the challenges of infrastructure management and rapidly delivering digital products.

• Short, focused engagement with clear deliverables
• Opportunity to work on modern cloud platforms
• Fully remote and flexible
• Fast interview process and quick start

But don’t just take our word for it, you can check out what our Appvians say about us on Glassdoor and by following us on LinkedIn, Twitter and TikTok.
We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and actively encourage, respect, and recognise diversity of thought and background throughout the business. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family or parental status, national origin, or veteran, neurodiversity, and disability status.