Service Desk Manager: Lead & Scale IT Support Team

DataVita Limited; Blantyre; On-site; GBP 45,000 - 65,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days annual leave

Life assurance 4x salary

Group income protection 70% of salary

Help@Hand: remote GP

Cycle to Work

EV car salary sacrifice

6 company events per year

Job summary

DataVita is seeking a Service Desk Manager to lead and mature the support team across IaaS, BaaS, DRaaS, and Network services. You will build a structured path from 1st to 3rd line, act as escalation point, and own incident outcomes while hands-on in daily operations.

The role requires 5+ years in IT support leadership, ITIL proficiency, and strong stakeholder management. UK driving license is essential; data centre and MSP experience are a plus.

Qualifications

• 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.
• 5+ years' technical experience supporting or managing environments across networking, storage, backup/DR, and management tooling.
• Experience using automation, workflow or AI tools to improve operational efficiency.
• Solid grasp of ITIL principles and service management practices.
• Can work autonomously, provide routes forward, and escalate when needed.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Able to lead under pressure in a fast-paced, client-facing environment.
• Full UK driving license.

Responsibilities

• Build a structured development pathway (1st - 2nd - 3rd line) with coaching, skills development and progression.
• Act as an escalation point, challenging diagnoses and keeping issues moving toward resolution.
• Duty manager for major incidents and customer escalations, owning service outcomes.
• Embed incident, request, problem, change and knowledge management into daily operations.
• Represent operational support needs with technical, project, customer and service delivery teams.
• Manage performance, identify root causes when performance dips, and drive improvements.
• Drive documentation and work-note standards to reduce escalation and aid junior engineers.
• Reduce manual admin via tooling, workflows, and automation/AI.
• Make autonomous operational decisions, escalating only when 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.

Skills

Service Desk Leadership

IT Support Management

Hands-on Troubleshooting

ITIL & Incident Management

Networking & Firewall basics

Storage (SAN/NAS)

Backup / DR Solutions

Automation / AI tooling

Project Stakeholder Management

Driving License

Cloud / Data Centre experience

ServiceNow

Cohesity exposure

Cisco / Fortinet

Tools

ServiceNow

Job description

DataVita is seeking a Service Desk Manager to lead and mature the support team across IaaS, BaaS, DRaaS, and Network services. You will build a structured path from 1st to 3rd line, act as escalation point, and own incident outcomes while hands-on in daily operations.

The role requires 5+ years in IT support leadership, ITIL proficiency, and strong stakeholder management. UK driving license is essential; data centre and MSP experience are a plus.