Incident Management Lead

idibu; England; Hybrid; GBP 53,000 - 63,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading service management company is seeking an Incident Management Lead to oversee the Incident Management process across a 24/7 operational environment. You will ensure effective incident management, minimize business impact, and maintain service continuity. The ideal candidate should have ITIL certifications and strong communication skills to engage with stakeholders effectively. This role offers a competitive salary and various benefits, including a generous pension scheme.

Benefits

Competitive salary up to £63,000

Annual Leave - 26 days, increasing to 30

Generous Pension Scheme

Performance-related pay plan

Health and well-being benefits

Qualifications

• Experience in Incident Management within a structured ITIL/ITSM environment.
• Previous experience in leading or coordinating teams in a multi-vendor environment.
• Strong understanding of IT operations and service delivery within enterprise environments.

Responsibilities

• Act as the central point of contact for major incidents, ensuring rapid response.
• Support the delivery and governance of the Incident Management process.
• Lead the coordination of teams to ensure effective prioritisation and resolution of incidents.

Skills

Service management expertise

Strong communication skills

Stakeholder management

Analytical problem-solving

Customer-focused approach

Education

ITIL v3 Foundation or ITIL 4 Foundation certification

ITIL Intermediate certification

Job description

As an Incident Management Lead, you will be responsible for ensuring the effective delivery and continual improvement of the Incident Management process across a 24/7 operational environment. You will play a pivotal role in managing the end-to-end lifecycle of incidents, minimising business impact, and ensuring service continuity across all Thames Water business areas.

This role requires excellent service management expertise, strong communication and stakeholder management skills, and the ability to operate effectively within a multi-vendor, offshore-supported environment.

What you’ll be doing as an Incident Management Lead

• Act as the central point of contact for all major and business-critical incidents (P1 & P2), ensuring rapid response, clear communications, and timely resolution.
• Support the delivery and governance of the Incident Management process, priority matrix, policies, procedures, and associated guidance.
• Work on a 24/7 rota to manage major incidents and escalations, including out-of-hours incident resolution and communication.
• Lead the coordination of internal teams and third-party suppliers to ensure effective prioritisation and resolution of incidents in line with agreed SLAs and contractual obligations.
• Monitor, measure, and report on all incident-related KPIs, identifying trends and opportunities for service improvement.
• Maintain strong relationships with stakeholders across the business and Thames Digital to ensure business impacts are fully understood and managed.
• Ensure process compliance across all resolver groups and that the Incident Management process is consistently followed across all service teams.
• Actively contribute to and support other ITIL-aligned service management processes including problem, change, event, capacity, continuity, and availability management.
• Provide timely and relevant incident communications, tailored to the appropriate audience, to ensure transparency and trust throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Support the automation and enhancement of the incident management process through improved tooling, reporting, categorisation, and knowledge sharing.
• Partner with the Digital Risk Lead to identify and manage risks arising from incident trends or gaps in process execution.
• Lead and track continual service improvement (CSI) activities, ensuring the process remains fit-for-purpose and evolves with business needs.
• Contribute to wider operational goals by supporting service reporting, business continuity efforts, and effective post-incident reviews.

Base location and working pattern

Hybrid – Clearwater Court, Reading, with a 36-hour working pattern from Monday to Friday and participation in a 24/7 on-call rota.

What you should bring to the role

• ITIL v3 Foundation or ITIL 4 Foundation certification.
• ITIL Intermediate certification (Service Operation, OSA, or any ITIL 4 Specialist module).
• Experience in Incident Management within a structured ITIL/ITSM environment.
• Previous experience in leading or coordinating teams in a multi-vendor, offshore delivery model.
• Strong understanding of IT operations and service delivery within enterprise environments.
• Excellent planning, communication, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate clearly at all organisational levels.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver service improvements and measure outcomes effectively.
• Familiarity with regulatory and audit requirements related to IT service management.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with a customer-focused approach.
• Proficient in reporting and performance analysis using dashboards and service metrics.

Desirable qualifications and experience

• ITIL v3 Intermediate – Continual Service Improvement or ITIL 4 Managing Professional certification.
• Chartered IT Professional (CITP) – BCS.
• Experience designing and measuring customer-centric process outcomes.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to prioritise and deliver under pressure.
• Understanding of project management principles and the ITSM lifecycle or Service Value System.
• Experience with SLA/KPI monitoring and reporting tools.
• Familiarity with budget planning, business case development, or service cost analysis.

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary up to £63,000 per annum, depending on experience.
• Annual Leave - 26 days holiday per year, increasing to 30 with the length of service. (plus bank holidays).
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON.
• Performance-related pay plan directly linked to both company and individual performance measures and targets.
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

We are committed to being a great, diverse, and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats, or anything else, just let us know, we’re here to help and support.