Be the driving force behind OCU's digital workplace experience.
As Service Desk Manager (1st Line & Request Fulfilment), you will lead the team that sits at the front door of OCU's Technology function, supporting approximately 6,000 colleagues across multiple regions. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for delivering outstanding customer experience, operational excellence, and continuous improvement across phone, portal, chat and self-service channels.
Reporting to the Service Operations Manager, you will own the end-to-end 1st Line operating model, ensuring colleagues receive fast, effective support while driving automation, self-service adoption and service quality improvements. You'll lead a multi-region team, optimise service performance through data-led decision making, and work closely with technology teams and service partners to enhance the overall user experience.
This is more than a traditional Service Desk management role. We're looking for a proactive leader who can build scalable processes, improve first-contact resolution, reduce customer effort, and create a high-performing, customer-focused culture. You'll play a key role in delivering OCU's ambition to become a world-class, award-winning Service Operations function.
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Lead 1st Line support and request fulfilment services across phone, portal, chat and walk-up channels.
- Drive service performance against key metrics including SLA, XLA, CSAT, first contact resolution and ticket quality.
- Own triage, routing and workload management processes to ensure efficient resolution and seamless escalation.
- Develop and deliver self-service, automation and shift-left initiatives that reduce demand and improve colleague experience.
- Manage and enhance the service catalogue, knowledge base and request fulfilment processes.
- Lead major incident communications and front-line service response activities.
- Drive continuous improvement through data analysis, customer feedback and service reviews.
- Build, coach and develop a high-performing multi-region team, creating clear career pathways and capability development programmes.
- Partner with Technology, Engineering, Security and managed service providers to improve end-to-end service delivery.
You will bring proven experience leading a Service Desk, 1st Line Support or Request Fulfilment function within a complex, multi-site or global enterprise environment. You are passionate about customer experience, operational excellence and team development, with a strong track record of improving service performance through automation, self-service and continuous improvement.
Essential Skills & Experience
- Experience managing a Service Desk, 1st Line Support or Request Fulfilment team supporting large-scale enterprise environments (5,000+ users).
- Strong understanding of ITIL/ITSM practices across incident, request and knowledge management.
- Experience with enterprise ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, Freshservice or Jira.
- Demonstrable success delivering automation, self-service and service improvement initiatives.
- Strong analytical skills with experience using service performance data to drive decision making.
- Experience operating multi-region or follow-the-sun support models.
- Proven people leadership, coaching and team development experience.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- ITIL v4 Foundation or equivalent certification.
- Experience with service automation platforms such as Microsoft Copilot or Power Automate.
- Knowledge of ISO 27001, ISO 22301 or Cyber Essentials Plus.
- Experience with Lean, Six Sigma or other continuous improvement methodologies.
- Experience developing structured analyst training and career progression programmes.
At OCU Group, we don’t just deliver infrastructure - we help power modern life.
As one of the UK’s fastest-growing utility and infrastructure businesses, we deliver complex, nationally critical projects across power, energy transition, water, telecoms, and digital infrastructure. Over the last five years, OCU has grown five-fold to a £1.1bn organisation, expanding both organically and through strategic acquisitions across the UK, Australia, New Zealand and India.
Our growth is driven by ambitious people, operational excellence, and a commitment to doing things properly. We work on projects that genuinely matter by supporting the UK’s energy transition, strengthening essential infrastructure, and helping build more sustainable communities for the future.
Whether you’re an experienced professional looking to take ownership of major projects and influence delivery at scale, or someone starting your career through an apprenticeship, graduate programme, or placement route, OCU offers real opportunity to grow, develop, and make an impact.
We are building a business where high performance, collaboration, innovation, and accountability sit at the centre of our culture. Our people are trusted to lead, encouraged to challenge thinking, and supported to continuously develop their skills and careers.
At OCU, you won’t just join a growing business, you’ll help shape it.
Our Culture & Values
At OCU, our values are at the heart of everything we do. We care about safety, lead with integrity, strive to be better every day, make a positive impact, and deliver to grow, together, as One Company United.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
At OCU Group, we believe diversity, inclusion, and belonging are fundamental to building stronger teams, better ideas, and a more successful business. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to creating an environment where everyone feels valued and supported.
As part of our commitment to fairness and equality, candidates may be asked to complete an equal opportunities monitoring form during the recruitment process. This information is used for monitoring purposes only and plays no part in hiring decisions.
We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and are committed to offering interviews to candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions who meet the essential criteria for the role.
To ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to join our team, please inform us if you require any reasonable adjustments to our recruitment and interview process is, by emailing
[email protected].
