Service Transition Lead

AQA Recruiting; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 55,000 - 60,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid working

Bupa Health Insurance

Health Care Cash Plan

Life Assurance

Electric Vehicle Leasing

25 days annual leave

Job summary

AQA is seeking a Service Transition Lead in Manchester to oversee the transition of new, changed, and retired services into live operation. The role requires governance across multiple workstreams, with stakeholder engagement and a focus on operational stability during business transformation.

Hybrid working arrangement; minimum two days in the office. The incumbent will work with senior technology leaders and partners to ensure successful go‑live, readiness, and post‑live support, while

Qualifications

• ITIL Foundation required; higher ITIL certifications, PRINCE2, Agile or similar are advantageous.
• Proven experience in service transition, service management or IT project delivery.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management; able to influence and challenge when needed.

Responsibilities

• Ensure services are transitioned according to defined processes and governance.
• Drive transition activities with appropriate resourcing and alignment to service plans.
• Chair Go Live readiness and Acceptance into Service checkpoints with sign‑offs.
• Collaborate with business owners, product and service owners to ensure readiness and alignment.

Skills

ITIL Foundation

Stakeholder management

Project delivery

Job description

Service Transition Lead

Job title: Service Transition Lead Contract type: Fixed Term (24 Months) Location: Manchester Salary: Manchester £55,000 - £60,000 Working arrangements: Hybrid, with a minimum of 2 days per week in the office

Support the successful transition of critical technology services that support millions of learners across the UK. This is an opportunity to take a leading role in the delivery of technology change across AQA.

You’ll work with senior technology leaders, project teams and operational stakeholders to influence how services are introduced, ensuring change is delivered successfully and sustainably across a complex technology landscape.

If you’re an experienced service transition professional looking to operate at a strategic level and shape best practice, this role offers both challenge and impact. You’ll support the successful introduction of technology change into live service, ensuring operational stability while enabling business transformation.

Purpose of the role

As Service Transition Lead, you’ll be responsible for ensuring new, changed and retired services are transitioned effectively into and out of live operation. You’ll provide expert oversight, governance and challenge across multiple workstreams, working closely with senior technology leaders, operational teams and third‑party partners to identify risks, drive readiness activities and ensure successful outcomes. This role is suited to an experienced service transition professional who can influence stakeholders, provide constructive challenge and support the successful delivery of service transition activities across a complex technology landscape.

Key responsibilities

• Support the successful transition of technology services into live operation, ensuring they are operationally ready, supportable and aligned to business objectives.
• Provide governance, challenge and strategic oversight across a portfolio of technology change initiatives, influencing decisions at all stages of the delivery lifecycle.
• Drive service readiness activities, identifying and mitigating risks to ensure smooth implementation with minimal impact on operations.
• Partner with senior stakeholders, project teams, service owners and suppliers to embed service transition best practice and deliver successful business outcomes.
• Chair go‑live and acceptance into service reviews, providing assurance that services meet agreed operational, support and governance requirements.
• Validate future operating models and support arrangements, ensuring services can be sustained effectively as technology and business needs evolve.
• Contribute to the ongoing maturity of the Service Transition function, driving continuous improvement across processes, governance and service delivery practices.

Technical and business context

To thrive in this role you’ll need:

• Experience in service transition, service management or IT project delivery, or a similar governance role.
• Strong knowledge of ITIL service management principles, service acceptance processes and operational readiness frameworks.
• Experience managing multiple stakeholders across project delivery, operational support and supplier environments.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and decision‑making skills, with the confidence to provide constructive challenge and drive successful outcomes.
• Experience working within complex, enterprise‑scale or regulated environments where governance, service stability and business continuity are critical.
• An ITIL Foundation qualification, with higher‑level ITIL certifications, PRINCE2, Agile or other recognised delivery qualifications being advantageous.

What’s in it for you

• A platform to influence education nationally and represent AQA at key events
• Career development and professional growth in a leading education charity
• Hybrid working and flexibility to support work‑life balance
• Comprehensive benefits including Bupa Health Insurance, Health Care Cash Plan, Life Assurance and an Electric Vehicle Leasing scheme, generous, combined pension contributions up to 18.5% and 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays and extra closure days at Christmas
• An inclusive culture that welcomes new perspectives, values collaboration and encourages innovative thinking to improve how we support teachers and students

Diversity and inclusion

At AQA, we’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels they belong and can do their best work. We value the different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds our people bring, knowing they strengthen our culture, decision‑making and impact. We foster an inclusive environment where everyone is treated with respect, has access to opportunities to grow and contribute, and feels able to be themselves. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and lived experiences.

Full Job Description Summary Purpose

The Enterprise Technology department delivers IT services across AQA. The Service Transition Lead ensures that new, changed or retired services are effectively transitioned into or out of live operation. This includes assessing service readiness against agreed acceptance criteria, coordinating with delivery teams and ensuring that support functions are fully prepared to manage and sustain the service. Reporting to the Service Transition Manager, the role requires strong collaboration across delivery and operational teams, with a focus on ensuring that services are introduced in a controlled, consistent, secure and supportable manner. The Service Transition Lead also contributes to the ongoing development and maturity of the Service Transition function, supporting continuous improvement and alignment with AQA’s strategic goals.

As a Service Transition Lead, you will:

• Collaborate closely with Business Change Hubs including Programme and Project Management and the PMO, to ensure timely delivery of service‑related documentation.
• Engage early with programmes, projects, and initiatives to assess service transition requirements and estimate the effort needed for successful implementation.
• Provide recommendations on go‑live readiness, early‑life support and service acceptance.
• Ensure service acceptance criteria are clearly defined, communicated and understood across IT Operations and relevant business areas.
• Confirm service acceptance criteria and secure sign‑off at appropriate stages of the delivery lifecycle.
• Ensure service transition activities are aligned with IT Operations and business expectations, enabling a smooth transition into live service and handover of support.

Landscape: The Enterprise Technology Department, part of the Global Corporate Services Division, enables the centralised delivery of core corporate services and works closely with Assessment Technology and Programme Management to deliver the full IT service portfolio. Enterprise Technology comprises the following functions: Service Delivery (including Service Desk) Enterprise IT Services (Desktop, Systems & Infrastructure) Enterprise Applications Enterprise Architecture Security, Risk & Data Protection

Service Transition Leads will play a pivotal role in ensuring that new, changing, or retiring services are transitioned effectively and in alignment with established processes.

Working closely with projects and programmes to monitor transition progress, escalating issues where necessary and ensuring service readiness.

Activities

• Ensure services are transitioned according to defined processes, escalating risks or issues as needed.
• Drive delivery of transition activities, ensuring appropriate resourcing and alignment with service plans.
• Conduct weekly, monthly, and ad hoc reviews of programmes and projects to assess the state of service transition and identify risks or gaps.
• Act as a key liaison for Enterprise Technology, supporting complex portfolio activities with clear service transition planning.
• Confirm service acceptance criteria, securing sign‑off at appropriate stages.
• Schedule and chair Go Live Readiness and Acceptance into Service checkpoints to confirm Enterprise Tech requirements met and obtain approvals.
• Collaborate with internal teams and suppliers to execute transitions and hand over services for ongoing management.
• Ensure knowledge transfer and documentation updates are completed as part of transition.
• Engage with business stakeholders, including Business Owners, Product Owners & Service Owners to ensure service transition aligns with operational expectations and readiness.
• Engage with Enterprise and Assessment Architecture teams to ensure alignment between service transition planning and architectural direction.
• Support strategic planning for future support models and organisational design, ensuring prioritisation and scheduling of service impacts.
• Review and feed into project risk logs, working with workstream leads to identify and mitigate service‑related risks and ensure appropriate handover of residual or ongoing risks to the operational risk register as part of Acceptance into Support.
• Prepare RAG status reports and other stakeholder communications to ensure visibility of progress and issues.
• Align project plans with capacity planning across Enterprise Technology and ensure resource availability.
• Maintain strong relationships with governance groups and stakeholders, ensuring clear and timely communication.
• Collaborate with Change Management to align transitions with change enablement processes.
• Contribute to the continual development of the project delivery framework, with a focus on service‑oriented documentation.
• Ensure that Enterprise Technology low‑level Projects/Initiatives not governed by the wider AQA Project Governance Framework still adhere to service transition principles.
• Provide guidance and oversight to ensure non‑framework initiatives meet minimum service transition requirements and are appropriately tracked and reported.
• Feed into and collaboratively maintain the Enterprise Technology Project Register to ensure visibility of Service Transition involvement and engagement across all levels of projects and initiatives, including those outside the formal AQA governance framework.
• Use the register to track transition status and support prioritisation and planning across the Enterprise Technology portfolio.
• Maintain the SharePoint repository and associated Teams site for service transition artefacts, ensuring updates to key resources such as templates, checklists and Checkpoint Countdown trackers.

Report directly to the Service Transition Manager, providing regular updates on transition progress.

Escalate issues, risks, or blockers that may impact service readiness, go‑live decisions or operational support to the Service Transition Manager in a timely and structured manner. Escalations may also inform weekly and monthly reporting to the Senior Leadership Team.

Provide reasonable cover for Service Transition Manager tasks during periods of leave, ensuring continuity of transition oversight and stakeholder engagement.

Report on KPIs and success metrics.

Collaborate with the Service Transition Manager to align transition activities with strategic priorities and ensure consistency across programmes, projects, and Level 3 initiatives.

Maintain a pragmatic, outcome‑focused approach to service delivery, balancing process adherence with flexibility to meet business needs.

Actively contribute to the maturity and evolution of the Service Transition function by identifying opportunities for continual service improvement, including process enhancements, tooling updates and documentation refinements.

Support the development and implementation of improvement initiatives, ensuring lessons learned from transitions are captured and used to inform future practices.

To be successful in this role, you will need to demonstrate:

Broad understanding of the education sector and AQA’s operations.

Strong understanding of project delivery methodologies and service transition principles.

Commercial awareness and familiarity with budgetary considerations.

Strong people management and coordination skills to motivate and guide colleagues.

Excellent communication, with the ability to influence, negotiate and provide constructive challenge.

Effective use of project and portfolio management tools to support delivery.

Pragmatic, outcome‑focused approach; calm and resilient under pressure.

Problem‑solving skills to unblock challenges that may hinder progress.

Essential Criteria

• ITIL Foundation certification (ITIL Practitioner or higher preferred).
• Proven experience in service transition, service management and/or IT project delivery.
• Good understanding of ITSM frameworks and best practices (e.g., ITIL).
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Demonstrable experience leading transition and organisational design activity for managed service implementations.
• Experience managing cross‑functional teams and complex transitions.
• Experience operating within ITIL‑based environments and processes.

Desirable Criteria

• PRINCE2, Agile or other recognised project management certification.
• Experience in large‑scale IT environments or regulated sectors (e.g., public sector, finance).

About AQA

AQA is an independent charity that sets and marks over half of all GCSEs and A‑levels in the UK every year. Our purpose is to advance education by helping students and teachers to realise their potential. As part of AQA, you’ll very quickly appreciate the determination and unwavering passion to deliver this goal in everything we do. To help drive these ambitions, AQA invests in the development of its people by offering a range of professional development and learning opportunities leading to over 50% of our permanent roles being filled internally.