Service Desk Manager

Armstrong Talent Partners; Blantyre; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days annual leave

Life assurance at 4x salary

Group income protection at 70% of sal

Job summary

Armstrong Talent Partners is seeking a Service Desk Manager to lead our support team across IaaS, BaaS, DRaaS and Network offerings. This role focuses on building a capable, self-sufficient desk, reducing reliance on individual engineers, and developing talent from 1st to 3rd line.

You will balance hands-on work with strategic incident management and continuous improvement. The ideal candidate has demonstrated leadership of a service desk, strong hands-on IT skills, and solid communication and

Qualifications

• Experience leading a Service Desk or IT support function.
• Transitioned from an experienced support engineer into a management role.
• Strong hands-on technical grounding to challenge diagnoses and review notes.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Full UK driving license.

Responsibilities

• Build a structured development pathway (1st–3rd line) with coaching and progression.
• Act as escalation point and drive investigations toward resolution.
• Duty manager for major incidents and customer escalations.
• Embed incident, problem, change and knowledge management into daily operations.
• Represent operational support requirements with technical, project and service teams.
• Drive performance analysis and root-cause improvements.
• Standardise documentation and reduce escalation volume.

Skills

Service Desk Leadership

IT Support Management

Hands-on IT Skills

Networking (switching & firewalls)

Storage SAN/NAS

Backup/DR Solutions

Automation/AI Tools

ITIL & ITSM

Autonomous Leadership

Communication

Driving License

Tools

ServiceNow

Job description

We’re looking for a Service Desk Manager to lead our support team, delivering fast, effective, customer-focused service across our IaaS, BaaS, DRaaS and Network offerings.

The role is about building a more technically capable, consistent and self-sufficient Service Desk, reducing dependency on individual engineers and creating a structured pathway for developing talent from 1st through to 3rd line.

You don't need to be the most technically senior person in the room, but you need enough breadth and depth across infrastructure technologies to understand technical discussions, challenge weak diagnoses and recognise when an investigation is heading in the wrong direction.

SLA performance and continuous improvement sit with you, and the role stays hands-on rather than managing from a distance.

Responsibilities

• Build a structured development pathway (1st - 2nd - 3rd line) with coaching, skills development and progression
• Act as an escalation point, challenging diagnoses, spotting when an investigation is going in the wrong direction, and keeping issues moving towards resolution
• Duty manager for major incidents and serious customer escalations, owning the service outcome even where technical actions sit with other teams
• Embed incident, request, problem, change and knowledge management into daily operational reality, not just process documentation
• Represent the operational support requirement with technical, project, customer and service delivery teams to ensure new solutions and changes transition into support cleanly
• Manage performance, not just report it. Identify root causes when performance dips, act on them, and evidence the improvement
• Drive consistent documentation and work-note standards across the team to reduce escalation volume and support faster development of less experienced engineers
• Reduce manual admin, reporting and ticket-handling overhead by making better use of tooling, workflow and automation/AI
• Make autonomous operational decisions across competing priorities, escalating only when genuinely necessary
• Own the service desk toolset - ticket management, workflows, reporting
• Support client onboarding and service transitions with account managers and project teams
• Contribute to business continuity and out-of-hours support planning
• Own and maintain the internal knowledge base, ensuring documentation is accurate and current

Required Skills & Experience

• Proven experience leading a Service Desk or IT support function
• Transitioned from an experienced support engineer into a management role
• Strong hands-on technical grounding — enough depth to challenge a diagnosis and review root cause and technical work notes
• Networking — switching/firewalls
• Storage — SAN/NAS
• Backup / DR Solutions
• Management tooling that drives efficiency in an MSP environment
• Experience using automation, workflow or AI tools to improve operational efficiency
• Strong grasp of ITIL principles and service management practices, applied operationally rather than on paper
• Can work autonomously and provides routes forward rather than asking for direction, while knowing when something genuinely needs escalating
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills
• Able to lead under pressure in a fast-paced, client-facing environment
• Full UK driving license

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience in cloud, infrastructure, or data centre environments
• Background in an MSP or enterprise support setting
• Exposure to enterprise backup/DR solutions such as Cohesity
• Exposure to network platforms such as Cisco/Fortinet
• Experience with ITSM toolsets such as ServiceNow
• 33 days annual leave
• Life assurance at 4x salary
• Group income protection at 70% of salary for up to 2 years