Senior Service Desk Analyst (ITSM & Service Operations) at Ministry of Defence, Remote, 5 Months, £Contract Rate

The Senior Service Desk Analyst (ITSM & Service Operations) provides operational leadership across the Service Desk, supporting Incident Management, Service Request Management, Knowledge Management, Configuration Management and Continual Service Improvement activities. The role is responsible for maintaining effective ITSM processes, supporting the operational use of the CMDB, contributing to service onboarding activities and coaching analysts in the consistent delivery of ITIL-aligned service management practices.

As a Senior Service Desk Analyst, your main responsibilities will be to:

• Support Incident Management, Service Request Management and Major Incident Management activities, ensuring services are delivered in line with agreed processes and service levels.
• Provide experienced operational support across the service desk, taking ownership of complex incidents, service requests and customer enquiries.
• Use Jira Service Management to record, prioritise, investigate, resolve and escalate tickets, ensuring accurate and complete ticket information is maintained.
• Monitor service desk queues, workload, ticket ageing and service level performance, taking action or escalating where service performance is at risk.
• Use service desk data, performance metrics and reporting to identify trends, risks and opportunities for continual service improvement.
• Proactively identify missing, inaccurate or incomplete configuration information and contribute to improving CMDB data quality.
• Provide day-to-day guidance, coaching and support to Service Desk Analysts, promoting consistent working practices and effective service resolution.
• Support the allocation and coordination of work across the service desk, escalating resource or coverage concerns to the Service Desk Manager.
• Act as an escalation point for complex enquiries and difficult customer interactions.
• Maintain and improve service desk standard operating procedures, scripts, templates, runbooks and guidance materials.
• Promote effective communication between users, the service desk, service managers and technical resolver teams.
• Coach and develop Service Desk Analysts, supporting performance and availability.

PLEASE NOTE: SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position (short-term nature of this role and speed at which we require a postholder in situ) preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance.

Essential:

• Demonstrable understanding of ITIL service management principles, including Incident Management, Service Request Management, Knowledge Management and Configuration Management.
• Demonstrable experience of working in an IT service desk, IT support or service management environment.
• Experience of taking ownership of complex incidents, service requests or customer enquiries.
• Experience of using or contributing to a CMDB and understanding how configuration information supports incident and request resolution.
• Practical experience of using an IT service management tool to manage tickets, queues, priorities, updates, escalation and resolution.
• Experience of working in an ITIL-aligned service management environment.
• Experience of supporting or coaching colleagues and improving the consistency or quality of operational work.
• Experience of producing or contributing to service desk reporting, analysing trends and identifying service improvement opportunities.
• An understanding of knowledge management and experience of creating, reviewing or improving support documentation or knowledge articles.
• An understanding of asset and configuration management, including how service and configuration information supports effective incident and request handling.
• Ability to interpret service desk information and identify trends, risks or areas requiring improvement.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with users and technical resolver teams.
• Evidence of taking ownership, exercising sound judgement and working effectively with limited supervision.

Desirable:

• Practical experience of Jira Service Management.
• Experience of developing or maintaining a service desk knowledge base.
• Experience of supporting the onboarding or transition of new services into live support.
• Experience of working with service catalogues, service levels or operational reporting.