Location
London

Hours
Full Time

Salary
£99,808 per annum

About the Role
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK’s busiest and most successful NHS trusts, providing a wide range of hospital and community services across south London and specialist care nationally. The Trust is home to leading centres including the largest dental school in Europe, a £160 million Cancer Centre, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, and one of the largest critical care units in the UK. In 2021, the Royal Brompton and Harefield joined the Trust, creating a world-renowned heart and lung centre.

The Head of Service Operations is a critical leadership role responsible for ensuring the reliable, high-quality delivery of frontline IT services across the Trust. You will oversee Service Desk, Incident & Problem Management, Request Fulfilment, and Service Reporting, leading operational performance in one of the most complex healthcare environments in the UK.

This role requires a leader with deep expertise in IT service management, exceptional stakeholder influence, and resilience to guide teams through change. You will embed ITIL excellence, drive service maturity, and lead multi-disciplinary teams through high-pressure moments, fostering a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and user-focused delivery.

Working within the DT&I Directorate, you will collaborate with technical and service delivery experts passionate about enabling patient-facing colleagues and delivering outstanding digital services. The Trust is committed to flexible working, equality, diversity, and staff wellbeing, offering a positive and inclusive atmosphere with opportunities for professional development.

This is more than a job—it is a mandate to modernise, innovate, and lead digital service excellence at a national level.

Experience
- Extensive senior management experience in IT service operations
- Proven ability to lead large teams and complex projects
- Strong knowledge of NHS infrastructure, systems, and regulatory requirements
- Experience delivering complex ICT services and managing service-focused roles within large organisations
- Demonstrable ability to translate policy and strategy into operational deliverables
- Experience managing high-value contracts and procurement processes is desirable

About you
- Strong leadership, influencing, and communication skills
- Analytical and pragmatic problem solver with excellent planning and organisational abilities
- Innovative manager with a track record of implementing systems and services that deliver measurable benefits
- Commitment to continuous professional development and alignment with Trust values
- Ability to foster a positive, inclusive, and high-performance culture
- Adaptable and resilient, able to lead through change and high-pressure situations

Qualifications
- Educated to PhD level or equivalent through knowledge and experience
- Qualified PRINCE2 practitioner
- Evidence of continuous professional development
- Desirable: Management qualification (e.g., Diploma in Management Studies), recent management/leadership development programme completion, ITIL4, SDI, PMP, or CITSM certifications