Head of IT services

Closing date for applications: 5th January 2026

Salary: £65,000 - £80,000 dependent on experience (+bonus +benefits)

Lead IT service excellence at one of the UK’s most influential publishing groups.

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity. We're made up of 10 autonomous publishing divisions and over 60 imprints with a rich and diverse history and an incredible range of authors. We're also the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Orion, which won Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards; Little, Brown; John Murray Press; Hodder & Stoughton; Headline; Octopus, and Bookouture. They publish fiction and non-fiction in digital, audio and print format, from the world's best and most diverse authors, including Brit Bennett, Candice Carty-Williams, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Maggie O'Farrell, Delia Owens, Ian Rankin, Colson Whitehead, and Malala Yousafzai. Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hachette Learning is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools.

This role leads the delivery of high-quality IT support and ensures operational excellence through ITIL-aligned service management and continuous improvement initiatives. As a member of the Hachette UK IT “Heads of” community, the post holder contributes to strategic planning, cross-functional collaboration, and leadership development across the organisation.


Responsibilities

Service operations

• Manage and oversee day-to-day operations of the 1st Line Service Desk, 2nd Line team and Service Management, ensuring SLA adherence, governance and customer satisfaction

ITIL service management

• Chair the CAB and own ITSM tool governance, and roadmap.
• Drive problem management and service reviews (internal and external)
• Define and implement service improvement initiatives and programmes
• Embed and evolve ITIL processes across incident, change, request and problem management
• Evaluate IT processes on a regular basis, identifying areas where the targeted process metrics are not reached
• Conduct service assessments for each area of IT to evaluate maturity assessments and key performance metrics

Strategic leadership

• Actively contribute to the Hachette “heads of” community, shaping service culture and succession planning
• Collaborate with other heads of and directors to align service delivery with business goals
• Represent IT services in cross-functional forums and strategic initiatives
• Lead and develop a high performing, engaged and inclusive team

Who we are looking for

• Proven leadership in IT service desk operations, ideally within a hybrid support model
• Strong understanding of ITIL principles and experience implementing/leading significant service improvement plans
• Demonstrable ability to foster a customer-centric culture and drive continuous improvement
• Experience managing outsourced vendors and in-house technical teams as a ‘Manager of Managers’
• Experience of leading major incident and problem management
• Demonstrable experience of building high performing, engaged and inclusive teams
• Demonstrable experience in leading scale projects and change management, individually and through others
• Fully focused on customer service excellence – anticipating, meeting and exceeding the customers’ expectations
• Able to interpret, analyse and visualise (to team and wider business) metrics to support business goals
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and management – able to manage expectations at all levels and take pragmatic decisions
• Excel at inspiring, coaching, and empowering their team to achieve excellence – able to deliver results through others
• Able to influence others, negotiate and challenge – senior individuals, teams and peers
• Excellent communication skills – ability to adapt to situation and audience
• Able to collaborate with other IT leaders to have an impact outside of your own area
• Commercially focussed – able to translate services and business goals, understands the business
• Positive, flexible and with a can-do attitude at all times
• Degree in systems engineering or related discipline or equivalent
• MCSE an advantage

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• 12 Staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including AgeWise, Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

Our commitment

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds. If you are shortlisted and need us to make any adjustments to help you attend for interview, please let us know.

Please include in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.