Lead Service Manager

Company: Lorien
Apply for the Lead Service Manager
Location: Manchester
Job Description:

Hybrid Working (2 days office / 3 days home) – Coventry or Manchester

Our client, a well-established UK financial organisation operating in a complex, regulated environment, is investing significantly in its IT Service Management function following a major restructure. As part of this, they’re looking for a Lead Service Manager to take end-to-end ownership of IT service quality for a key business directive – covering internal technology teams and a portfolio of third-party vendors and partners

This is a genuinely business-facing role. You’ll be the trusted point of contact between business stakeholders and IT, holding vendors to account on performance, driving service improvement (reactive and proactive), and ensuring commercial commitments – contracts, renewals, SLAs – land on time and deliver value

What you’ll be doing

  • Owning service quality end-to-end across internal teams and outsourced/third-party vendors, including services where you’re managing through SLAs and contractual levers rather than direct oversight
  • Holding vendors accountable for performance, running corrective action plans where needed, and driving continuous improvement
  • Taking commercial ownership of vendor contracts and renewals, ensuring nothing slips
  • Acting as the primary business-facing point of contact for a defined directive, building trusted relationships with stakeholders at all levels
  • Playing an active role in incident and problem management, keeping stakeholders informed and addressing recurring issues at source
  • Working closely with change delivery teams to ensure new or modified services transition smoothly into live support
  • Representing service priorities and risk considerations within delivery roadmaps

What we’re looking

  • A background in service management, ideally from Financial Services, MSP, service transition, or incident/problem management environment
  • Strong commercial acumen – comfortable negotiating with vendors and managing contracts
  • Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills – able to listen as well as drive outcomes
  • Comfortable operating in a complex, regulated, fast-paced environment
  • Financial services or other regulated-sector experience is a plus but not essential – we’re equally interested in candidates from MSP, telecoms, retail or other complex service environments
  • Working knowledge of Microsoft Office; Jira experience useful but not essential

What’s on offer

  • Discretionary annual bonus of up to 20%
  • Life assurance, private medical insurance, health screening
  • 28 days holiday plus bank holidays, with a buy/sell scheme
  • Hybrid working – 2 days in office (Coventry or Manchester), 3 days from home
  • This is a fast-moving process with a target start date ahead of a major business milestone in early September, so early applications are encouraged.

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Posted: June 23rd, 2026