Service Manager
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Sainsbury's Tech
Closing date: 14 January 2026
Requisition ID: 400045035
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.
In a nutshell
In Sainsbury’s Tech we build the technology which powers the UK’s number 1 multi-channel, multi-brand retailer.
The role of Service Manager is central to the business-critical transformation of Technology delivery at Sainsbury’s. Reporting through to a Head of Service Management, the heart of the role is contributing to running the technology services for a particular area within Sainsbury’s Tech, as well as ensuring that new services introduced in the area are delivered with the appropriate service support in place.
This responsibility for making sure that specific services provided by Engineering Teams are supported effectively includes ensuring both internal and external teams are performing to a relevant set of operational KPIs / metrics relating to ITIL measures within Sainsbury’s Tech.
The role holder must have a mindset and passion for IT Service Management and the ability to encourage this in the Engineering Teams, who operate in the End-to-End Product Lifecycle Management delivery methodology.
What do I need to Do
Ensure the smooth day to day running of Service Management for a specific area (usually aligned with a Head of Engineering/Technology). This includes:
- Monitoring daily dashboards for incidents reported against the services they are responsible for, ensuring that incidents are being dealt with effectively
- Supporting with escalations from stakeholders to ensure customer or business impact of any incident is minimized, as well as providing timely communication back to them
- Reviewing RFCs (requests for change) to the services to help ensure that deployments do not affect the stability or availability of the area, and reviewing subsequent success of these changes
- Monitoring the services in your area to ensure their accuracy – including any associated support models, stakeholder information and knowledge articles
Continually review the Service Performance of the area to look the area for opportunities to improve the experience for its customers. This includes:
- Use the data in dashboards and reports to review service trends in the area – providing expert analysis and insight which can drive tangible improvement actions
- Manage the Problem and Risk management process to help tech teams track and address long running issues which could undermine the stability of the services
- Monitor the adherence to service processes by teams – taking the opportunity to coach when relevant to improve performance
- Drive and track any potential improvements or actions through regular service reviews with internal Technology teams, support partners or external vendors
Support Technology Teams in managing services throughout their whole lifecycle, as well as supporting during significant or untypical events
- Coaching teams around building and deploying new services – validating that all necessary service transition tasks are considered to ensure smooth introductions of new services
- Input into discussions regarding potential new partners or software purchases – ensuring that service needs have been considered
- Assist tech teams around the decommissioning process of services
- Support in the event of Major Incidents in your area – providing SME support and guidance to assist with resolving the issue as quickly as possible, as well as participating in subsequent Major Incident reviews and tracking improvement tasks
- Co-ordinate readiness efforts for notable events or peak trading periods in your area and ensure any necessary actions are completed on schedule
- On occasions throughout the year – perform the Manager on Escalation Role for Tech
How will I succeed
- Partner with the teams / stakeholders in your area and build strong relationships to enable you to influence a strong service mindset and embed a culture of good service management – always maintaining focus on the customer experience. This can be done formally through Service Reviews and informally though coaching and initiatives
- Be the Service SME in your area, clearly communicating the priorities that will help to deliver service improvements and clear accountabilities as to who should deliver these
- Collaborate with our Tech partners or external vendors – challenging them to meet the Sainsbury’s tech expectations and standards for delivering Service Excellence
- Applying the service management standards and processes consistently in your area, whilst understanding when they might need to be tailored or flexed to fit diverse areas
- Be able to work at a fast pace – constantly reviewing priorities and the changing business needs to determine the service strategies for your area
- Actively seek feedback from the tech teams about the service management processes, feeding any suggestion for simplification or improvement back into the Service Community
- Actively participate in the Service Management Community – sharing knowledge and best practice with other members, as well as helping to deliver the agreed priorities of the unified Service Management Function
Essential Criteria:
- An understanding of industry standards and best practice regarding service management.
- Strong knowledge of ITIL Service Management framework and its processes
- Hands on experience of ITSM tools (with ServiceNow being a preference)
- Experience of data analysis – the ability to use data and reports to identify trends and opportunities for improvements in service management
- An understanding of service management in the context of agile and iterative in-house development, as well as more traditional waterfall programme delivery.
- Understanding of Agile, Waterfall and DEVOPS methodologies.
- Understanding of process management and control.
- A broad knowledge and understanding of Sainsbury’s Tech concepts with proven experience of successfully managing and maintaining services (desirable).
What I need to show
- A passion for customer service – being able to focus attention on the customer experience and make links to how Service Management can support in improving this
- A proactive approach to Service Management – being self-motivated, curious and driven to find every way to improve our services and deliver our targeted Sustainable service ambitions
- Communication and influencing skills - including managing messages when presenting to stakeholders at all levels
- Sound judgment – using the available evidence and knowledge to make informed decisions concerning service priorities
- Ability to manage your time to deliver your tasks – even when you might have unexpected work due to the nature of the Service Management tole
- Ability to take accountability for personal development including seeking feedback, building, and maintaining a meaningful personal development plan.
- Emotional intelligence – to be able to understand the multiple priorities of different teams and to know how to present the right messages to drive service improvement
Resources available to me
- Service Compliance team within Service Operations
- Other Service Managers, Service Leads and Heads of Service Management within the Domains across Sainsbury’s Tech
- Engineering teams
- Delivery teams
- Service Community of Practice
- Learning and Development resources, including Our Sainsbury’s
What decisions I can make
- Approve acceptance of specific services into BAU support.
- Apply decisions around appropriate Level of Service Transition activities for new services.
- Approval of specific changes to services in the live environment.
- Validation and approval of Problem Ticket Closure
- Validation and Approval of Proposed Deployments and RFCs
- No specific budget.
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
