IT Service Desk Lead: People, Performance & Impact

Group Support Services; Lancashire; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension scheme

Bonus scheme

Holiday allowance

Healthcare cashback

Wellbeing support

employee discounts

Training & progression

Recognition programmes

Gym membership

Life Assurance

Job summary

Places for People is seeking an experienced IT Service Desk Lead to oversee day-to-day operations, guide a team of engineers, and ensure a high-quality, customer-focused service. You will manage workloads, escalations, and backlog while driving improvements through KPI analysis and collaboration with senior technical teams.

The role is based on site in Preston, requiring strong leadership, ITIL/ITSM knowledge and a proactive coaching mindset to develop colleagues and maintain service excellence.

Qualifications

• Leadership experience in a technical support or IT service desk.
• Strong understanding of IT service management (incident, request and problem management).
• Experience managing demand while meeting service levels and performance targets.
• Demonstrated ability to lead, coach and develop technical support colleagues.
• Experience using IT service management tools to oversee incidents, workloads and service performance.
• Experience supporting a range of business functions and stakeholders, including leading service review meetings.

Responsibilities

• Lead the day-to-day operation and performance of the Service Desk.
• Guide and support a team of IT Service Desk Engineers to deliver a customer-focused service.
• Maintain queue health, allocate workloads, manage backlog and coordinate escalations.
• Analyse performance against KPIs and drive improvements in processes and efficiency.
• Act as operational escalation point for complex issues and coordinate with second/third-line teams.
• Contribute to knowledge management and training through coaching and onboarding.

Skills

Leadership

ITIL knowledge

Incident management

SLA management

Stakeholder comms

Coaching

ITSM tools

Tools

ITSM tools

Job description

Places for People is seeking an experienced IT Service Desk Lead to oversee day-to-day operations, guide a team of engineers, and ensure a high-quality, customer-focused service. You will manage workloads, escalations, and backlog while driving improvements through KPI analysis and collaboration with senior technical teams.

The role is based on site in Preston, requiring strong leadership, ITIL/ITSM knowledge and a proactive coaching mindset to develop colleagues and maintain service excellence.