Application Services Manager

The Openwork Partnership; Swindon; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 66,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-target bonus 10%

Pension matched up to 5%

Critical illness cover

Income protection

Death in service

25 days holiday + up to 10 bank hols

Private medical insurance

Dental insurance

Job summary

The Openwork Partnership is seeking an Application Services Manager to lead the operation, support, and lifecycle management of key business applications. You will champion ownership across the portfolio, drive service quality, and coordinate transitions from new to legacy systems while working with agile teams.

Reporting to the Head of Enterprise Technology, you will manage vendor relationships, implement improvements, and align applications with business outcomes.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading Application Support, Application Operations, Enterprise Applications or similar technology teams.
• Strong experience owning business-critical applications throughout their lifecycle.
• Experience working within Agile/Scrum environments, balancing incidents, maintenance and improvements.
• Experience managing SaaS, hosted and third-party applications, including vendors and SLAs.
• Strong understanding of enterprise application environments, including integrations, APIs, databases, authentication, monitoring and logging.
• Practical knowledge of IT service management (incident, problem, change, release, continuity, service transition).
• Experience managing application risk, security, access controls and data protection, ideally in regulated environments.
• Experience of application modernisation and decommissioning with safe handling of dependencies and data.
• Strong people leadership, stakeholder management and clear business-oriented communication.
• Relevant Agile, Scrum, IT service management, cloud or leadership qualifications are advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Own the operational performance and lifecycle of business-critical applications.
• Oversee incident and problem management to improve service reliability and outcomes.
• Partner with Architecture and IT Service teams to ensure operational readiness and secure transitions to live service.
• Lead onboarding and ongoing management of vendor-hosted and third-party applications with SLAs and supplier performance.
• Own the application improvement and retirement roadmap, balancing support with upgrades and debt reduction.
• Lead safe decommissioning of legacy applications with data retention and access considerations.
• Use service data and feedback to prioritise demand and continually improve application services.

Skills

Application leadership

Lifecycle ownership

Agile/Scrum

SaaS/Third-party apps

Enterprise app environments

IT service management

Risk & security management

Modernisation & decommissioning

Stakeholder communication

Leadership qualifications

Job description

• As the Application Services Manager, you will lead the teams responsible for the operation, support, improvement and lifecycle management of Openwork's business applications. This role ensures that applications supplied by strategic partners and maintained within the Openwork estate remain reliable, secure, supportable and aligned to business outcomes.

  Reporting to the Head of Enterprise Technology, you will lead Scrum teams that balance operational support with planned improvement and decommissioning. You will create clear ownership across the application portfolio, improve service quality and flow, and ensure that new business applications are transitioned into effective operation while legacy applications are retired safely and deliberately.

  Responsibilities

  • Own the operational performance and lifecycle of business-critical applications, ensuring availability, resilience, security, supportability and effective risk management.
  • Oversee incident and problem management, driving root-cause resolution and continuous improvement to improve service reliability and customer outcomes.
  • Partner with Architecture and IT Service teams to ensure new and changed applications are operationally ready, secure and effectively transitioned into live service.
  • Lead the onboarding and ongoing management of vendor-hosted and third-party applications, including support models, SLAs, integrations and supplier performance.
  • Own the application improvement and retirement roadmap, balancing day-to-day support with maintenance, upgrades, automation, technical debt reduction and legacy removal.
  • Lead the safe decommissioning of legacy applications, ensuring dependencies, data, access, supplier arrangements and operational risks are appropriately managed.
  • Use service data, business feedback and technical insight to prioritise demand, manage risk and continually improve application services.

  Requirements

  • Proven experience leading Application Support, Application Operations, Enterprise Applications or similar technology teams.
  • Strong experience owning business-critical applications throughout their lifecycle, from implementation and service transition through to enhancement and retirement.
  • Experience working within Agile/Scrum environments, balancing incidents, maintenance, change and continuous improvement across competing priorities.
  • Experience managing SaaS, hosted and third-party applications, including vendors, managed service providers, SLAs and supplier escalations.
  • Strong understanding of enterprise application environments, including integrations, APIs, databases, authentication, monitoring and logging.
  • Practical knowledge of IT service management, including incident, problem, change, release, continuity and service transition.
  • Experience managing application risk, security, access controls, data protection, technical debt and business continuity, ideally within a regulated or financial services environment.
  • Experience of application modernisation and decommissioning, with the ability to safely manage technical dependencies, data retention, access and supplier exit.
  • Strong people leadership, stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to translate technical complexity into clear business priorities and outcomes.
  • Relevant Agile, Scrum, IT service management, cloud, application or leadership qualifications would be advantageous.

• We're a dynamic, fast-paced and growing business with huge ambition. This is all made possible by the brilliant people who are part of The Openwork Partnership family. We're investing heavily in our colleagues, continuously striving to give them the platform to develop personally and professionally and reach their full potential.

• Salary and benefits

  • Salary - up to £60,000
  • Bonus scheme - on target bonus 10%
  • Pension scheme - contribute up to 5% of your salary and Openwork will match you and put in an extra 5%
  • Critical illness cover
  • Income protection
  • Death in service
  • 25 days holiday
  • bank holidays, with the opportunity to buy up to an additional 10 days
  • A range of other flexible benefits to include private medical insurance, dental insurance and much more.

• Company culture

  The Openwork Partnership values and respects individuality and we are committed to building an inclusive culture and environment where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work. We believe that you will bring your best self to work if you are trusted to choose when, where and how you do it. On top of offering a modern workplace with bags of development opportunities, we also offer a highly attractive benefits package to reward you for your hard work. This includes a competitive base salary, an industry-leading annual bonus, enhanced pension, critical illness cover, income protection and a range of other flexible benefits.