Business Service Manager

Standard Life plc; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical cover

38 days annual leave

Employer pension contribution up to 12

Life assurance 12x salary

Volunteering days

Flexible working

Job summary

Standard Life plc is seeking an IT Business Service Manager to join our IT Service Operations team on a 12-month fixed term contract. You will oversee end-to-end IT services for key business areas, ensuring alignment with customer needs, governance and risk controls.

The role requires ITIL certification, strong stakeholder management, incident and change management experience, and ServiceNow familiarity. Hybrid working with offices across the UK and a robust benefits package is offered.

Qualifications

• IT Service Management experience in a complex organisation.
• Experience with business service management and translating priorities into IT service requirements.
• Strong stakeholder management with senior business and technology stakeholders.
• Major incident and operational management experience with clear business communications.
• Experience in service performance management including SLAs and trend analysis.
• Practical ITIL-aligned processes experience (Incident, Problem, Change, SLA, Availability, Continual Improvement).
• Experience of change governance and service transition showing operational impact assessment.
• Operational risk and governance experience across organisational and supplier boundaries.
• Knowledge of COBIT or similar control frameworks beneficial.
• Strong communication and influencing skills to drive actions in risk or performance contexts.
• ITIL certification is mandatory; ServiceNow experience desirable.

Responsibilities

• Act as principal IT service contact for assigned business areas, building strong stakeholder relationships and providing clear escalation routes for issues, risks and priorities.
• Develop understanding of business services and dependencies to keep IT services aligned to needs.
• Represent business priorities during major incidents and service disruptions, coordinating communications and service recovery.
• Monitor service availability, SLA performance, customer experience and trends to drive improvements.
• Identify and drive management of IT service risks and issues with clear ownership and mitigations.
• Represent operational requirements through governance forums, assess impact of changes and ensure readiness.
• Maintain service management information and controls within ServiceNow to support governance and decision-making.
• Support audits and assurance activities with objective evidence.
• Use performance data to identify improvement opportunities and drive measurable outcomes.

Skills

IT Service Management

Business Service Management

Stakeholder management

Major incident management

Service performance management

ITIL processes

Change governance

Operational risk governance

Governance frameworks

Communication skills

ITIL certification

ServiceNow knowledge

Tools

ServiceNow

Job description

Job Description

Job Type: 12-month Fixed Term Contract (FTC)

Salary and benefits: £60,000 – £70,000 plus an indicative bonus of 16-32%, private medical cover, 38 days annual leave, up to 12% employer pension contribution, 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more.

Location: This is a hybrid role, with the flexibility to work from home alongside weekly attendance at one of our offices in Edinburgh, Birmingham, London or Telford.

Flexible working: All roles are open to part-time, job-share and other types of flexibility. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about flexible working here.

Closing Date: 22/11/2026

Who are we?

We’re Standard Life, a retirement specialist focused entirely on retirement savings and income. We champion the belief that everyone’s journey to and through retirement can be better, and for more than 200 years, we’ve been helping our customers plan and prepare for their financial futures.

Life today is increasingly complicated, uncertain and unpredictable. People move through different careers, face unexpected moments and navigate important choices. We offer our colleagues flexibility, trust and benefits that work for whatever life brings. In return we expect curiosity, connection, accountability and high standards. We make room for what matters - so you can bring your best, every day.

We’re looking for an experienced IT Business Service Manager to join our IT Service Operations team and help ensure the technology services supporting our critical business operations remain reliable, resilient and aligned to the needs of our customers and the business.

The role

As an IT Business Service Manager, you’ll act as the key link between IT and the business, providing end-to-end oversight of applications and services supporting critical business operations. Working across business stakeholders, IT teams and third-party suppliers, you’ll ensure services remain reliable, resilient and aligned to business needs, with effective oversight of service performance, operational risk, incidents, change, governance, service transition and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Business and IT relationship management: Act as the principal IT service contact for assigned business areas, building strong stakeholder relationships and providing a clear escalation route for service issues, risks and priorities.
• Business service alignment: Develop a strong understanding of business services, processes, priorities and critical periods, ensuring IT services and operational priorities remain aligned to business needs.
• Major incident and service disruption: Represent business priorities during major incidents and significant service disruption, articulating customer and business impact, supporting effective stakeholder communications and coordinating business validation of service recovery.
• Service performance: Monitor service availability, SLA performance, customer experience and operational trends, using service reviews and management information to identify areas of concern and drive measurable service improvement.
• Operational risk and issue management: Identify, assess and drive the management of IT service risks and issues, ensuring appropriate ownership, mitigation, escalation and resolution across internal teams and third-party suppliers.
• Change and service transition: Represent operational and business service requirements through CAB and other relevant governance forums, assessing the impact of planned changes and outages and ensuring appropriate operational readiness before new or changed services enter production.
• Service governance and controls: Maintain appropriate service management information and controls, including service availability records, Business-Critical Service Catalogue information and supporting evidence within ServiceNow, ensuring information remains accurate and supports effective governance and decision-making.
• Risk and assurance: Support internal and external audit, assurance and control activities, including the provision of evidence against relevant frameworks such as COBIT, ensuring services operate within agreed organisational, regulatory and governance requirements.
• Continuous improvement: Use service performance, incidents, problems, risks and stakeholder feedback to identify improvement opportunities and work with relevant teams and suppliers to drive these through to measurable outcomes.

What are we looking for?

We’re looking for someone who brings strong IT Service Management experience, sound operational judgement and the ability to build trusted relationships across business and technology teams. You’ll be comfortable operating in a complex environment, influencing stakeholders and suppliers, challenging where appropriate and bringing together technical and business perspectives to achieve the right customer and business outcomes.

You’ll Bring

• Proven IT Service Management experience within a complex organisation, ideally supporting business-critical or customer-facing technology services.
• Business Service Management experience, with the ability to understand business services and dependencies and translate business priorities into clear IT service requirements and actions.
• Demonstrable stakeholder management skills, with experience of building effective relationships with senior business stakeholders, technology teams and third-party suppliers.
• Major incident and operational management experience, including representing business impact and priorities during significant incidents and translating complex technical information into clear, meaningful business communications.
• Experience of service performance management, including availability, SLAs, service reviews, trend analysis and the identification and delivery of service improvements.
• Practical experience of ITIL-aligned processes, particularly Incident, Problem, Change, Service Level, Availability and Continual Improvement practices.
• Experience of change governance and service transition, including assessing operational impact, service readiness, support arrangements and risks associated with new or changed services.
• Operational risk and governance experience, with the ability to identify risks, establish clear ownership and drive mitigation and resolution across organisational and supplier boundaries.
• Experience working within governance, risk and assurance frameworks, including supporting audits, control assessments and evidence requirements. Knowledge of COBIT or similar control frameworks would be beneficial.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the confidence to constructively challenge, escalation and drive action where service performance, customer outcomes or operational resilience are at risk.
• ITIL certification is mandatory, supported by strong practical experience of applying IT Service Management principles in a complex operational environment.
• Experience of ServiceNow is desirable, particularly across Incident, Problem, Change, service availability, service catalogue and wider IT Service Management activities.

We Want To Hire The Whole Version Of You.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

Find Out More About Working At Standard Life

• Guide for Candidates: standardlifeplc.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.standardlifeplc.com/careers/talk-to-us