Head of Service Delivery

Williams Stanley and Co; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading accountancy firm in Manchester is seeking a Head of Service Delivery to coordinate and manage client delivery across multiple teams. This role requires strong experience in operations leadership and service quality. The ideal candidate will be responsible for prioritizing workflows, ensuring deadlines are met, and fostering communication among stakeholders. This position offers a competitive salary and a flexible working model, promoting both personal and professional development.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Employee Recognition platform YuLife

Ongoing career progression

30 days holiday entitlement

Great pension scheme

Flexible working model

Qualifications

• Proven experience in service delivery or operational leadership.
• Strong analytical and organizational skills.
• Comfortable using systems to monitor performance.

Responsibilities

• Oversee coordination of client delivery.
• Manage delivery deadlines and compliance timelines.
• Support the introduction of service delivery standards.

Skills

Service delivery experience

Operational leadership skills

Process improvement

Workflow coordination

Strong communication

Tools

CRM platforms (Hubspot)

Time tracking tools (Timely)

Job description

About Us

Williams, Stanley & Co is a leading accountancy firm catering to a diverse range of clients within the hospitality industry, from high street chains to family‑run cafes. Our company began with a mission to provide accurate and actionable financial insights to businesses, drawing from our founders' own experiences in managing multiple rapidly growing ventures. Driven by a commitment to customer‑first accounting, we've assembled a team of experienced and trusted accountants who share our vision for excellence. With a strong emphasis on collaboration and expertise, our team operates seamlessly across different locations, including the UK, Philippines and Dubai.

About You

We are seeking an experienced Head of Service Delivery to lead and own the day‑to‑day flow and performance of client delivery across the business. This is a key leadership role responsible for ensuring work flows smoothly, service standards remain high, and teams are supported to deliver consistent, high‑quality outcomes. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in service delivery, operations leadership, or programme management within a professional services environment. You will be highly organised, commercially aware, and confident managing complex, deadline‑driven workflows across multiple teams. This role is similar to a Service Delivery Manager, Operations Delivery Lead, or Programme Delivery Manager within a professional services or multi‑client environment. It focuses on coordinating live client work, managing priorities and capacity, and ensuring delivery commitments are met. It is not a technical accounting role, but a role that enables accountants and delivery teams to perform at their best.

You will act as the operational control point for live delivery, ensuring priorities are clear, workloads are balanced, and delivery risks are surfaced early.

You Are

• A proven leader with experience overseeing service delivery or operational performance
• Experienced in managing high volume, deadline‑driven client work
• Skilled at improving processes, prioritisation, and ways of working
• Comfortable using systems and data to monitor performance and drive improvement
• Calm under pressure and confident coordinating across multiple stakeholders
• A strong communicator who can deliver through others and build trust across teams
• Commercially aware, with an understanding of service quality and client experience
• Have previously worked in a service delivery, PMO, operations delivery, or client operations role
• Experienced in environments where multiple clients, deadlines, and service lines must be coordinated simultaneously
• Experienced in a professional services or accounting environment is desirable

What You’ll Be Doing

• Oversee the day‑to‑day coordination and prioritisation of live client delivery across service lines
• Act as a central point of coordination for delivery priorities, challenges, and escalations
• Ensure delivery deadlines, compliance timelines, and reporting commitments are met consistently
• Support the introduction and maintenance of clear service delivery standards across core services
• Promote consistent routing of work through agreed operational processes to ensure visibility and balanced workloads
• Run regular delivery reviews and triage to balance workload, capacity, and risk
• Daily review and management of resource allocation and planning across teams.
• Maintain oversight of onboarding readiness and ensure delivery starts in a structured and well‑prepared way
• Ensure clear handovers from onboarding into live delivery, with documented ownership and known considerations
• Oversee delivery for key or high‑value clients through structured tracking and review
• Support consistent application of SLAs and service expectations across the client base
• Own the operational use of core systems supporting delivery, including CRM, time tracking, and delivery trackers
• Use delivery data and MI to identify trends and improvement opportunities
• Support system adoption and data quality to ensure accurate visibility of delivery performance
• Maintain structured quality assurance approaches across key client outputs
• Embed consistent ways of working and support adoption of standard operating procedures
• Work closely with team leads to ensure workload is aligned to capability and capacity
• Identify pressure points early and recommend sequencing or resourcing adjustments
• Support a more predictable, well supported delivery environment across teams
• Contribute to structured service delivery reviews, risk tracking, and performance reporting
• Provide clear visibility of delivery performance, risks, and capacity considerations to leadership

Skills And Qualifications

• Proven experience in service delivery, operations leadership, or programme management
• Strong understanding of workflow coordination, prioritisation, and service quality
• Experience improving operational processes and embedding structured ways of working
• Comfortable working with systems such as CRM platforms (Hubspot), time tracking tools (Timely), and operational dashboards
• Strong organisational and analytical skills
• Ability to influence and coordinate across multiple teams and senior stakeholders
• Experience in a professional services environment is preferred.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary
• Membership on our Employee Recognition platform YuLife - with numerous free perks and access to counselling services and training providers
• Ongoing career progression, training and support in gaining nationally recognised qualifications (including Education Scheme and ACCA Support)
• 30 days holiday entitlement pro rata (including Bank Holidays) with an additional day for each year of service
• Great pension scheme (Penfold)
• Fun company socials and events
• Flexible hybrid working model (2 days minimum in the office)
• Employee Assistance Programme and coaching for personal and professional development
• Enhanced parental leave policy (subject to length of service requirements)
• Birthday leave – an additional day of leave to be taken on or around your Birthday
• Mental Health Half Days – celebrating the power of ‘Me Time’
• Annual Pay Reviews and Biannual Appraisals – career progression is everything!
• Perks and benefits on our HR platform Employment Hero

We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.