Ticketing Operations Lead

Manpower; Manchester; On-site; GBP 70,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading recruitment agency is seeking a Ticketing Operations Lead in Manchester to oversee payment systems for digital and physical transport environments. You will ensure system reliability, manage incident responses, and lead operational teams. The ideal candidate has extensive experience in high-availability systems, payment processing, and compliance standards. This role offers a competitive salary starting at £70,906 per annum and requires effective leadership and coordination skills.

Qualifications

• Proven management of operations for customer-facing systems.
• Experience in cloud environments (AWS) and networking.
• Adept in incident management and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Oversee daily performance and reliability of ticketing systems.
• Respond to technical issues and coordinate resolution efforts.
• Manage vendor relationships to maintain compliance.

Skills

Management of high-availability systems

Understanding of payment systems

Proficiency with monitoring tools

Incident resolution skills

Leadership and coordination

Communication skills

Problem resolution

Education

ITIL certification or significant ITIL experience

Tools

ServiceDesk Plus

Job description

Job Role:

Ticketing Operations Lead (Band 10)

Start Date:

Immediate

Working Hours:

37 hours a week (Monday-Friday)

Location:

Piccadilly, Manchester, (M1)

Salary:

Starting at £70,906 per annum

Job Purpose

The role will lead the Operational Management and optimisation of all customer‑facing payment systems used across digital and physical transport ticketing environments. This includes contactless EMV payments, mobile ticketing apps, smartcard platforms, ticket vending machines, real time vehicle (bus) location systems and integrated journey planning systems. The focus is to ensure seamless, real‑time, and compliant payment experiences for millions of passengers, with high system availability and responsive issue resolution.

The individual will lead operational practices, monitor system health, coordinate incident response, and serve as a key liaison between Ticketing Leadership, technology teams including internal and external suppliers and customer experience stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• System Monitoring : Oversee daily performance of ticketing systems, ensuring uptime and reliability.
• Incident Management : Respond to and resolve technical issues quickly, coordinating with internal teams and vendors.
• Vendor Coordination : Manage relationships with service providers, payment networks, and platform vendors to maintain SLAs.
• Compliance : Ensure adherence to PCI DSS, GDPR, and transport regulations.
• Fraud & Revenue Protection : Monitor for suspicious activity and implement fraud prevention measures.
• Continuous Improvement : Identify opportunities for automation and process enhancements.
• Reporting : Prepare and present performance dashboards and incident reports to senior leadership.
• Team Leadership : Manage and support a team of operational staff, setting priorities and overseeing development.

Day-to-Day Activities

• Review overnight system performance reports and check for incidents.
• Monitor dashboards for transaction success rates and system health.
• Coordinate with technical teams and vendors to resolve issues promptly.
• Attend cross‑functional meetings to align ticketing operations with wider Bee Network objectives.
• Handle escalated issues and approve operational changes.
• Conduct compliance checks and fraud monitoring.
• Prepare strategic insights and reports for leadership.
• Support and guide team members on daily priorities and incident handling.

Personal Specification

Essential Experience, Knowledge and Skills

• Proven experience managing operations for high-availability, customer-facing systems.
• Understanding of payment systems (or similar), cloud environments (AWS), and networking fundamentals.
• Proficiency with monitoring, logging, and observability tools (eg. ServiceDesk Plus)
• Extensive experience of coordinating the resolution of major incidents to ensure quick and effective results with the ability to facilitate the identification of incident root cause
• Experience in managing on-call rotations, incident communications, and post‑incident reviews
• Experience of establishing and maintaining monitoring frameworks for system health, user experience, and key performance indicators
• Experience of managing payment dispute processes
• Experience of reporting non-compliance against contractual obligations
• Experience of liaising with technology teams including internal and external suppliers and stakeholders
• Experience of coordinating feedback to non-technical stakeholders D Desirable Experience
• Experience of operational role in Public Transport sector
• Experience in regulated payment industries EQ Essential Qualifications - Technical, Vocational or Educational
• ITIL (or equivalent) certification (or significant experience working in ITIL aligned environment EA

Essential Attributes

• Strong leadership, coordination, and communication skills.
• Proactive and effective resolution skills
• Encourages and motivates others>
• Develops people and team
• Acts as an example to others
• Solution and decision focused
• Resilient and self-motivated
• Customer and Commercial focused
• Approachable and confident DA Desirable Attributes
• Committed to promoting the benefits of integrated transport

Click apply now for immediate consideration!