Global Head of Service Desk

Perfect People; Milton Keynes; On-site; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Bonus

Benefits

Job summary

Perfect People is recruiting a Global Head of Service Desk for a growing MSP. It’s a big, hands-on role overseeing a 24/7 desk spanning the UK, US and an offshore team with plans to reach over 60 engineers by 2027.

You’ll lead regional managers, own SLAs and ticket flow across L1–L3, standardize all regions, and ensure proactive problem management with dashboards and playbooks. Office-based in Milton Keynes, with an attractive salary, bonus and benefits.

Qualifications

• Experience leading and scaling a multi-region or global service desk in an MSP.
• Experience managing managers and team leads.
• ITIL v4 Foundation.
• A degree or equivalent experience in IT or technical service operations.

Responsibilities

• Owning the flow of work across L1 to L3 globally and balancing demand across regions and time zones.
• Setting one way of working for every region, covering how tickets are triaged, assigned and moved on.
• Getting rid of unmanaged queues, stale tickets and reactive working.
• Owning SLA, OLA and XLA performance, plus first touch resolution, resolution times, backlog health, quality and CSAT.
• Making sure your managers can tell you not just what’s in the backlog, but why it’s there.
• Using dashboards as a live control tool, so you fix things before they go wrong rather than explaining them after.
• Embedding the Ticket Handling Playbook and building quality into the process, not checking it at the end.
• Acting as senior escalation point during P1 and P2 incidents while keeping BAU on track.
• Making 24/7 handovers between regions seamless, with clear ownership and escalation.

Skills

Global service desk leadership

Managing managers & team leads

ITIL v4 Foundation

Education

Degree in IT or related field

Tools

Halo PSA

Job description

I’m recruiting a Global Head of Service Desk for a growing MSP. It’s a big, hands-on job: a 24/7 desk spanning the UK, US and a new offshore team, with more than 60 engineers planned in to 2027.

The team

• UK: 10 x L1, 20 x L2 and 10 x L3 engineers
• US: Team of 5 plus L3 support
• Offshore: Offshore team planned for 2027, plus a Service Desk Manager you’ll recruit to lead it
• L3 covers

Team supports Modern Workplace, DaaS, Networking, SRE (SolarWinds), Platform, internal datacentres and clients.

You’ll have an L1 Manager, two L2 Managers and an L3 Manager reporting to you, plus a new offshore Service Desk Manager. You’ll report to the Global Head of Service Operations.

What you’ll be doing

• Owning the flow of work across L1 to L3 globally and balancing demand across regions and time zones
• Setting one way of working for every region, covering how tickets are triaged, assigned and moved on
• Getting rid of unmanaged queues, stale tickets and reactive working
• Owning SLA, OLA and XLA performance, plus first touch resolution, resolution times, backlog health, quality and CSAT
• Making sure your managers can tell you not just what’s in the backlog, but why it’s there
• Using dashboards as a live control tool, so you fix things before they go wrong rather than explaining them after
• Embedding the Ticket Handling Playbook and building quality into the process, not checking it at the end
• Acting as senior escalation point during P1 and P2 incidents while keeping BAU on track
• Making 24/7 handovers between regions seamless, with clear ownership and escalation

The people side

This is just as important as the numbers. You’ll lead Service Desk Managers and Team Leaders across every region and coach them to run their teams with real authority, without passing everything upwards. They’ll want someone who spots future leaders, invests in engineers and gives people a genuine route from L1 through to L3 and beyond.

What you’ll need

• Experience leading and scaling a multi-region or global service desk in an MSP
• Experience managing managers and team leads
• ITIL v4 Foundation
• A strong background in ITIL-aligned service desk environments
• A degree or equivalent experience in IT or technical service operations

Nice to have

• ITIL v4 Managing Professional or Strategic Leader
• Halo PSA or similar PSA certifications
• Experience running high-volume, SLA-driven operations
• Experience running globally distributed, 24/7 teams

The type of person they want

Someone who’s calm under pressure and doesn’t create an escalation culture. Structured, methodical, and clear when they communicate. More interested in outcomes than activity. Just as comfortable building a team up as getting into the detail of a ticket queue.

The practical bits

• Office based in Milton Keynes, Monday to Friday, plus on-call for only the highest major escalations (unlikely).
• Permanent, with an excellent salary, bonus and benefits
• A growing business where you’ll have real input into how the desk runs