Head of Operational Support & Business Planning

Sky; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading entertainment company in Newcastle upon Tyne is seeking a senior leader to oversee critical functions across its business segments. This role involves resource optimization, budget management, and strategic planning to achieve revenue growth. The ideal candidate will possess extensive experience in contact centre operations, leadership, and managing outsource partners. The position offers competitive benefits, including private healthcare and pension schemes, within a dynamic and inclusive work environment.

Benefits

Sky Q premium package

Generous pension package

Private healthcare

Discounted mobile and broadband

Sky VIP rewards and experiences

Qualifications

• In-depth understanding of contact centre operations across multiple channels.
• Ability to empower and enable teams for optimal performance.
• Experience in leading transformation and managing resource planning functions.

Responsibilities

• Ensure performance excellence across all Sky Business segments.
• Manage a budget exceeding $20 million with effective resource optimization.
• Lead the Learning and Development function across various segments.

Skills

Contact Centre operations expertise

Leadership

Strategic outlook

Financial literacy

Experience in managing outsource partners

Collaboration

Job description

Sky is Europe's leading entertainment company and serves over 22 million customers across five countries. Our business in the UK and Ireland has come a long way since starting out as a satellite broadcaster in 1989 and we’re not stopping there. We’re home to award‑winning teams for everything from Customer Service to SMG Commercial, from Technology to Finance, meaning there’s plenty of opportunity for you, no matter what your career goals. As a valued employee of Sky, you’ll benefit from a free Sky Q premium package (one off payment required for installation), an excellent pension scheme, private health care and a share save scheme. There’s a range of other benefits to help you make valuable tax and national insurance savings too.

This is a multi‑disciplined, senior leadership role which takes on combined ownership of a large and expanded role and assumes responsibility of 5 critical and distinct functions as follows:

Functions

• Resource / Workforce Planning
• Learning & Development
• Business outcomes optimisation & reporting (inc Reward)
• Engineering & Stock & Supply chain delivery for Sky Business as a whole
• Strategic Business Planning

The leader taking on this role must operate across all Sky Business’ 4 segments, all of which are in Growth mode. The role holder will support critical business success pathways, ranging from Onboarding of customers, through to the ongoing management of the base including Churn and revenue assurance. The successful candidate will also be integral in managing the performance and workload requirements of our offshore partners, across our hospitality and telecoms business.

Ultimately, this leader will help us productise the notion of “Better Business through Better Service” and will play a key role in supporting our Director in unlocking the vast opportunity in this area.

What you’ll do

The role‑holder is responsible for ensuring that all 4 segments of Sky Business excel in a highly competitive and trading‑centric environment. This is a large‑scale, highly complex strategy, planning and delivery role, with a broad remit that will support the successful achievement of our Revenue and EBITDA growth aspirations. In addition, you will be an integral player in executing against our Long‑Range Plan (LRP), collaborating with the Finance Director / Group Customer Director and the Strategy & Transformation Director.

• Effective resource optimisation, for a budget in excess of $20 M
• Supporting the productionising of the LRP
• Owning all offshoring plans and activity, supporting all 4 segments
• Leading the L&D function, including strategic development of function across all 4 segments
• Home Service (Engineering) supply & demand management. Significant resource optimisation with 18k jobs, 120 FTE and cost of >$7.5 M
• Stock & Supply chain delivery for Sky Business, cost of >$3 M
• Ownership of reward / commission, budget of >$1 M
• Business reporting / insights and opportunity optimisation
• Commercial & efficiency optimisation, including identification through to post‑implementation review
• Key Trading contributor, including supporting the Heads of Operations in delivery of the of Sales WIP (critical to our net growth) and base management plans
• Assisting merger and acquisition plans for “new books of business”

What you’ll bring

• A true Contact Centre expert, with In‑depth understanding of contact centre operations, including multi‑channel environments (voice, email, chat, etc.).
• You are an outstanding leader, who is great at empowering and enabling your people to be at their best, every single day.
• You have a strategic outlook, able to look ahead and create a clear vision and KPI‑led plan for the team; & be across detail to enable removal of blockers when they arise.
• You have strong commercial acumen and enjoy getting best value for Sky through win‑win partnerships.
• Commercially adept / high degree of financial literacy with experience / understanding of financial models & data and able to interpret complex financial metrics.
• Whilst this role isn’t leading a volume area, your impact will be felt by our volume areas so you will come with experience of having led large volume areas; in excess of 1k colleagues.
• Experience of leading and embedding transformation across a high volume of people e.g. through the expansion of new product lines, systems, or tools.
• You have experience of managing outsource partners, from contractual / commercial and operational KPI performance, including experience of negotiating deals / commercial terms (> $2 m value) with external partners / suppliers.
• You have previous experience of leading a L&D function.
• You have experience of managing resource planning functions, including initiating and executing future organisational design & operating models.
• You will operate as a senior leader, accustomed to working with Director & MD level leaders, and comfortable/confident & credible in communicating with C‑suite leaders.
• Experience of operating and influencing at a senior level within a fast‑moving service environment ensuring strong relationships are maintained with key internal stakeholders (Commercial Group, People, Finance, Change etc).
• You are a brilliant collaborator, communicator & relationship builder able to work across a matrix organisation with Product, Commercial, Resourcing, Sales/Service, Data Sciences, Finance, Marketing functions thriving of delivering win/win outcomes for Sky Business.
• You like working at pace and embrace change as an opportunity to get better.
• You are a leadership role‑model, and you model the behaviour you want to see. Highly effective leadership skills, with proven track record of developing high‑performing teams.

Team overview

This role sits within the Sky Business Group, which is an integral part of the Sky UK Business, delivering $400 M EBITDA contribution to the Sky UK Group, making up 15% of the total. We are currently embarking upon a major transformation within the Service domain in Sky Business, where this role will sit.

The rewards

There’s one thing people can’t stop talking about when it comes to #LifeAtSky: the perks. Here’s a taster:

• Sky Q, for the TV you love all in one place
• The magic of Sky Glass at an exclusive rate
• A generous pension package
• Private healthcare
• Discounted mobile and broadband
• A wide range of Sky VIP rewards and experiences

Inclusion & how you’ll work

Recognised by The Times and Stonewall, we take pride in our approach to diversity and inclusion. Investing in society, fighting racial injustice and setting ambitious targets for representation at Sky.

We’ve embraced hybrid working and split our time between unique office spaces and the convenience of working from home. You’ll find out more about what hybrid working looks like for your role later on in the recruitment process.

Your office space

Leeds

Our spacious tech hub is less than a mile from Leeds train station. There’s plenty of parking in the surrounding streets and at the nearby CitiPark.

Need a break? You can blow off steam over a game of pool or table tennis, and stay fit at our subsidised gym.

Or

Osterley

Our Osterley Campus is a 10‑minute walk from Syon Lane train station. Or you can hop on one of our free shuttle buses that run to and from Osterley, Gunnersbury, Ealing Broadway and South Ealing tube stations. There are also plenty of bike shelters and showers.

On campus, you’ll find 13 subsidised restaurants, cafés, and a Waitrose. You can keep in shape at our subsidised gym, catch the latest shows and movies at our cinema, get your car washed, and even get pampered at our beauty salon.

Or

Livingston Watermark House

Our lively campus is a free shuttle bus away from Livingston South train station and the town centre. Plus there’s onsite parking available for cars, motorbikes and bicycles.

You’ll be well fed at our subsidised canteen, and you can keep in shape at our onsite gym – or play a game of pool or table tennis.

Or

Newcastle

We’re based in the heart of Newcastle looking onto St James’ Park. Close to all main transport hubs, you’ll have access to a subsidised canteen and Sky Q lounge to relax in, table tennis, free tea and coffee, pool table, bike storage, prayer room and changing/washroom facilities.

We’d love to hear from you

Inventive, forward‑thinking minds come together to work in Tech, Product and Data at Sky. It’s a place where you can explore what if, how far, and what next.

But better doesn’t stop at what we do, it’s how we do it, too. We embrace each other’s differences. We support our community and contribute to a sustainable future for our business and the planet.

If you believe in better, we’ll back you all the way.

Just so you know

Just so you know: if your application is successful, we’ll ask you to complete a criminal record check. And depending on the role you have applied for and the nature of any convictions you may have, we might have to withdraw the offer.