Service Desk Manager

DFL; London; On-site; GBP 40,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Join the Premier League's IT team as a Service Desk Manager, where you will ensure efficient service desk operations, lead a talented team, and enhance customer satisfaction through effective issue resolution. Your role involves managing workflows, improving processes, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This position offers the opportunity to work in a dynamic environment supporting one of the world’s most recognized sports organizations, promoting teamwork and inclusivity along the way.

Benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Inclusive company culture

Professional development opportunities

Qualifications

• Proven experience in a Service Desk Manager role.
• Experience in managing KPIs and SLAs.
• Strong documentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Oversee daily operations of the service desk.
• Manage performance and provide feedback.
• Implement process improvements for efficiency.

Skills

Communication

Problem-solving

Team management

Customer service

ITSM tool knowledge

Tools

ServiceNow

Jira Service Management

Freshservice

Job description

The Premier League’s IT team is looking for a Service Desk Manager. The right candidate will have excellent communications skills and a strong background in IT Support. This role will work alongside the Head of Service Delivery to make sure that the Service Desk function is delivered to a high level.

The Service Desk Manager willresponsible for ensuring efficient ticket logging, prioritisation, and resolution, while overseeing daily operations and managing workload distribution. The role will lead IT project readiness, coordinate pilot testing, and monitor team performance against KPIs, providing feedback and performance reviews.

The role involves handling escalated issues, implementing process improvements, and managing resource allocation. Additionally, the manager maintains accurate documentation, oversees the self-service portal, and ensures high levels of customer service. They also develop training plans, foster a culture of knowledge sharing, and assist the team as needed, managing all Senior IT Technicians.

The role

Service desk operations:

• Oversee daily operations ensuring smooth shift handovers and continuity of service delivery.
• Ensure tickets are logged, prioritised and resolved efficiently.
• Regularly review ticket quality for completeness, accuracy, and SLA compliance.
• Monitor workload distribution and dynamically adjust team resources to handle volume surges.
• Act as service desk lead for IT project readiness — ensuring training, documentation, and support plans are in place.
• Coordinate pilot testing and UAT (User Acceptance Testing) activities with feedback loops into service desk practices.

Team Management:

• Day-to-day responsibility of the service desk team, managing all Senior IT Technicians.
• Develop personalised learning and development plans based on skills matrixes.
• Foster a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement within the team.
• Allocate resources and manage schedules to ensure adequate coverage and support.
• Support resource planning for anticipated business growth, seasonal demand, and project-related spikes.
• Participate in onboarding and mentorship of new hires within the team.

Performance Management:

• Monitor team performance against established KPIs and metrics, providing feedback and conducting performance reviews.
• Design and maintain performance dashboards to track key metrics such as first-contact resolution, response times, and backlogs.
• Prepare and present monthly service performance reports with actionable insights.

Escalation Management:

• Handle escalated issues and ensure timely resolution, escalating further to the Head of Service Delivery if necessary.
• Ensure all security-related service incidents are properly logged, escalated, and resolved in line with incident response procedures.

Process Improvement:

• Identify and implement process improvements to enhance service desk efficiency and customer satisfaction.
• Review and optimise ITSM tool workflows and configurations in line with evolving business needs.
• Identify repetitive service desk tasks that can be automated where possible.
• Identify methods for uncovering recurring pain points (e.g., user surveys, feedback forums) to support timely and effective resolution.

Documentation:

• Maintain accurate documentation of service desk procedures, incidents, and resolutions.
• Govern and routinely review a structured internal knowledge base of standard operating procedures, troubleshooting guides, and FAQs.
• Oversee and improve the self-service portal and knowledge content for end users.

Customer Service:

• Ensure high levels of customer service and satisfaction by addressing customer feedback and concerns.
• Proactively communicate planned outages, system changes, and maintenance windows to end users.
• Promote user self-service tools and end-user education materials (how-to guides, training content).

Requirements for the role

• Proven experience working in a similar Service Desk Manager role
• Proven ability and experience to lead and mentor technical teams, including conducting performance reviews
• Experience managing and reporting on KPIs and SLAs to improve service delivery
• Experience in troubleshooting software and hardware faults
• Problem-solving skills and ability to work under pressure
• Confidence in communicating with people and understanding their IT concerns
• ·IT Service Management (ITSM) tool knowledge (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Freshservice)
• Ability to form strong working relationships to best assist all staff, as well as having a good logical approach to problem solving
• Flexible and able to adapt to changes to work schedule when required
• Detail-oriented, deadline-driven, self-directed, and organised
• Confident in communicating with stakeholders at all levels of the business, including non-technical users
• Strong documentation and knowledge base governance skills
• Understanding of IT security principles and data protection practices in a service desk context
• Ability to assess and implement process and workflow improvements within a support environment
• Comfortable participating in or supporting IT project delivery, testing, and go-live planning

Our commitment to safeguarding includes implementing robust safer recruitment procedures to assess the suitability of individuals applying for roles that involve work with children and adults who are or may be at risk of harm. For further information, please see our Safeguarding Policy and Safer Recruitment Guidance.

We will remove barriers that prospective candidates might face at any stage of our recruitment process. If you have a disability and would like the advert in an alternative format, or would like to talk about how we can adjust the interview process to best support you, please contact [e-mail]

About The Premier League

The Premier League is home to some of the most competitive and compelling football in the world. The League and its Clubs use the power and popularity of the competition to inspire fans, communities and partners in the UK and across the world. The Premier League brings people together from all backgrounds. It is a competition for everyone, everywhere and is available to watch in 900 million homes in 189 countries.

We have a wide variety of responsibilities. These include organising the competition and its Handbook as well as managing the centralised broadcast and commercial rights. The work we do in conjunction with the Clubs also goes far beyond the 90 minutes. We support and provide a framework for youth development, we protect the organisation’s intellectual property, support the wider game and community programmes, undertake international development work and liaise with governing bodies and other leagues.

The Premier League is an equal opportunities employer and strives to create an inclusive culture where talent can flourish. We believe in the potential of everyone and open our doors to those who share those values. All appointments will be made based on merit; however, we particularly encourage applications from women, people from minority ethnic communities, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people.