Lead Service Manager

Reporting to the Head of Group Service Management, the Lead Service Manager will be accountable for driving service management activity and ensuring the delivery of a high‑quality, cost‑effective IT service. The role holder will oversee services provided both internally and by third‑party vendors, ensuring they are delivered in line with business needs, regulatory expectations and customer requirements. This role will sit within the CIDO IT Service function but will be aligned to enterprise business units and key business services, acting as a trusted business partner and the primary front door for CIDO services.

This role will own the relationship between business functions and application service providers on behalf of CIDO, maintaining accountability for the application service and ensuring robust vendor performance.

The role holder will be responsible for ensuring service levels are clearly defined and monitored, with service performance transparently reported through established forums. They will take ownership of critical business applications, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, internal standards and relevant schemes. The person in post will drive continuous improvement to enhance efficiency, value and customer satisfaction, engaging stakeholders to gather feedback and using performance insights to inform actions. They will play an active role in incident and problem management, ensuring stakeholders are well informed and recurring issues are addressed at source.

Working closely with change delivery portfolios, this role will also ensure service priorities are represented within delivery roadmaps and that risk considerations inform decision‑making. The role holder will drive high‑quality change and service transition practices, ensuring new or modified services meet acceptance criteria and enter support smoothly, including through early life support and warranty.

This role can operate from either our Head Office campus in Binley, Coventry or our Manchester office but as a Group role, travel to both locations will be required. A team-led hybrid working arrangement is in place.

Our benefits include

•            28 days holiday a year plus bank holidays and a holiday buy/sell scheme

•            Annual discretionary bonus scheme

•            Personal pension with matched contributions

•            Life assurance (6 times annual salary)

•            Car allowance

•            Single cover private medical insurance

•            Health screening

Find out more about the fantastic benefits of joining Coventry Building Society here

For this role you’ll need to have:

• Outstanding communication skills, both written and verbal
• An Agile Mind-set and demonstrate Enterprise thinking when making decisions and influencing.
• Strong facilitation and negotiating experience when dealing with complex issues
• Leadership experience with the ability to coach and empower others
• Ability to respond to, negotiate with and lead customers, users and internal/external suppliers at all levels with a strong commercial acumen
• Have strong attention to detail when amending, reviewing service and project documentation
• Be able to extract key information and formulate appropriate designs and plans
• Have a strong mastery of Technology Service Management concepts, theories and techniques
• ITIL V3/V4 Foundation
• Experience with Service Design and Transition Activities
• Working understanding of Agile Ceremonies and DevOps Techniques
• Essential experience of working in a complex, pressurised production environment

Experience in these areas would be helpful:

• Financial services
• Use of Microsoft Office Products essential. Jira working knowledge

In 2025, Coventry Building Society purchased The Co-operative Bank. Bringing together our purpose-led building society with the UK’s original ethical bank was the start of an exciting journey.

Trusted by over four million people, we’re a mutually owned business free from shareholders, and with our combined experience of almost 300 years, our ethics and dedication will continue to guide us. Together, we have shared values and an ethical approach towards our members, customers and colleagues.

We’re officially recognised as a ‘Great Place to Work’ and our benefits go beyond basic pay, with a discretionary bonus scheme, a culture of reward and recognition and comprehensive support for wellbeing.

We’re serious about equality, of race, age, faith, disability, and sexual orientation and we celebrate diversity. By working together, we know you’ll build more than just a career with us.

Flexibility and why it matters

We understand the need for flexibility, so wherever possible, we’ll consider alternative working patterns. Have a chat with us before you apply to see what the possibilities are for this role.                                                                                            

Proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer

We’re proud to offer an interview or assessment to every disabled applicant who meet the minimum criteria for our vacancies. As part of the application process, disabled applicants can opt in for the Disability Confident Interview Scheme. If there are ever occasions where it is not practicable to interview all candidates that meet the essential criteria, such as when we receive a high number of applications, we commit to interviewing disabled candidates who best meet the minimum essential and desirable criteria.