Senior Markets Service Officer

London Borough of Hackney; Langley; On-site; GBP 42,000 - 56,000; Full time

Job summary

London Borough of Hackney is seeking a senior operational lead for its markets and street trading locations. You will represent the Council, ensuring sites are safe, welcoming, and commercially successful, while balancing traders, residents, visitors, and the wider community.

You will spend much of your time on-site across Hackney’s markets, coordinating frontline operations, supporting colleagues, and building strong relationships with traders and partners.

Qualifications

• Experience of leading frontline operations in a busy environment.
• Ability to make decisions and resolve issues calmly under pressure.
• Strong relationships with traders, residents and partners.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of occupancy, customer experience and income generation.
• Focus on customer service while applying regulation and compliance.
• Good written communication and record keeping.

Responsibilities

• Lead frontline operations across markets and street trading locations.
• Coordinate activities on site and make sound decisions when issues arise.
• Develop colleagues, set standards and deliver consistent customer service.
• Build relationships with traders to support existing businesses and new entrants.
• Grow occupancy and income by filling pitches and attract traders.
• Manage licensing, inspections and enforcement proportionately.
• Improve income collection and reduce arrears while treating businesses fairly.
• Maintain high standards in the public realm and address hazards quickly.
• Use data to monitor performance and improve service operations.
• Collaborate with the Council and external agencies on complex issues.
• Support events and campaigns to attract new audiences and businesses.

Skills

Leadership

Decision making

Interpersonal skills

Commercial awareness

Customer service

Regulation & compliance

Written communication

Digital systems

Time management

Tools

Microsoft Office

CRM systems

Case-management systems

Mobile technology

Job description

You will be one of the senior operational figures representing the Council across our markets and street trading locations.

You will help ensure our sites are safe, welcoming, commercially successful and professionally run, while balancing the different needs of traders, residents, visitors and the wider community.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Leading frontline operations, coordinating activity on site and making sound decisions when issues arise.
• Supporting and developing colleagues, setting clear standards and helping officers and operational teams deliver a confident and consistent service.
• Building strong relationships with traders, helping existing businesses succeed and supporting new entrepreneurs into trading.
• Growing occupancy and income, identifying opportunities to fill pitches, attract new traders and strengthen the commercial performance of our markets.
• Managing licensing and compliance, carrying out inspections, resolving problems proportionately and escalating enforcement where necessary.
• Improving income collection, helping prevent and reduce arrears while treating businesses fairly and consistently.
• Maintaining high standards in the public realm, identifying hazards, defects, obstructions and other issues and making sure they are addressed quickly.
• Using data and operational intelligence to identify problems, track performance and improve how the service operates.
• Working with partners across the Council and with external agencies to resolve complex issues.
• Supporting events, campaigns and service improvement projects that bring new audiences and businesses into Hackney's markets.

We are interested in people who know how to lead busy, customer-facing operations and who can combine good judgement with strong relationships and commercial awareness.

Your experience might come from markets, retail, hospitality, events, town-centre management, licensing, logistics, enforcement, environmental services or another operational public-facing environment.

You will need:

• Experience of leading or coordinating frontline operations in a busy environment.
• The confidence to make decisions, solve problems and deal calmly with challenging situations.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to build credible relationships with businesses, colleagues, residents and partners.
• Commercial awareness and an understanding of how occupancy, customer experience and operational standards contribute to income and business success.
• The ability to balance excellent customer service with regulation, compliance and consistent application of rules.
• Good written communication, record keeping and organisational skills.
• Confidence using digital systems, including Microsoft Office, CRM or case-management systems and mobile technology.
• The ability to organise competing priorities and maintain standards during busy trading periods.

A genuinely frontline role

We want to be clear about the working pattern. This is not predominantly a desk-based role.

You will spend much of your working week at markets and street trading locations across Hackney, working directly with colleagues, businesses and the public.

The post requires every Saturday and at least two Sundays each month, as well as some evening and public holiday working.