Service Delivery Manager - Active SC Clearance Holder Only

Active Security Clearance Applicants only! Applicants must be sole UK nationals only. Start - asap Duration - 6 months to start, project likely 3-4 years Location - Hybrid (2 days per week in Reading once office up and running) Accountable for global service performance and customer experience across the Service Management operating model. The role provides a single senior point of accountability for service outcomes across the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan, integrating the contribution of teams, client teams and third-party suppliers. Key accountabilities Own the end-to-end service management relationship and provide clear accountability for global service outcomes, without displacing the contractual accountability of individual service providers. Lead global service reviews, performance governance and executive reporting, ensuring that trends, risks, dependencies, decisions and improvement commitments are visible and acted upon. Set the service performance approach for SLAs, XLAs and supporting operational measures, ensuring that service reporting reflects user experience as well as contractual performance. Coordinate regional delivery teams so that local priorities, language needs, national controls and stakeholder concerns are represented in global governance. Maintain oversight of the cross-supplier service improvement plan, agree priorities with authorised stakeholders and track benefits through to evidenced completion. Act as the senior escalation point for material service issues and critical incidents, working within agreed governance, security and approval guardrails. Own demand forecasting, capacity planning and service scaling, ensuring the operating model expands in line with user growth, new locations, services, suppliers and security domains. Ensure demand, capacity and service growth are reviewed regularly as users, locations, suppliers, applications and security domains are added. Support service catalogue and onboarding governance so new services and partners enter the model through controlled, repeatable routes. Promote consistent knowledge, reporting and handover practices across regions while respecting classification boundaries and national handling requirements. Provide commercial awareness in service discussions, identifying scope or demand changes for formal assessment rather than informally absorbing unapproved obligations. Lead service mobilisation, transition and country expansion activities, ensuring readiness criteria, governance controls and acceptance requirements are achieved before service responsibility transfers. Oversee delivery of ITIL-aligned service management practices including Incident, Major Incident, Problem, Change, Knowledge, Capacity, Availability, Service Level Management and Continual Improvement. Maintain the single operational view across teams, client teams and third-party suppliers, ensuring dependencies, risks, actions and decisions remain visible and actively managed through to closure. Ensure ServiceNow remains the authoritative operational system of record for service workflows, reporting, governance, supplier hand-offs and service performance management. Ensure service governance, reporting and operational practices comply with applicable security, sovereignty, information-sharing and national handling requirements. Experience, skills and qualifications Significant experience leading service delivery in a complex, multi-supplier or enterprise environment Experience in defence, aerospace, government or another security-regulated environment Strong working knowledge of ITIL 4 service management and service integration principles Experience of global or tri-country service delivery Demonstrable executive stakeholder management, governance and escalation leadership Practical exposure to XLAs, SIAM and continual improvement governance Ability to interpret service, risk, security and commercial information and turn it into clear decisions I