Service Desk Manager

Service Desk Manager

Job Purpose

The Service Desk Manager is responsible for the effective day-to-day operation of the university’s Estates and Facilities Service Desk, ensuring maintenance requests, job tickets and service reports are accurately recorded, prioritised, allocated and monitored through to completion.

The role manages the Service Desk team and coordinates reactive, routine and urgent maintenance requests across multiple in-house maintenance teams and external service providers. It also supports maintenance scheduling, reviews overnight and out-of-hours reports, monitors service performance and provides management information and dashboards to support operational decision-making and continuous improvement, minimising disruption to teaching, research, campus operations and the student experience.

Key Responsibilities

1. Service Desk Management and Team Leadership

• Manage the daily operation of the Service Desk, ensuring an efficient, responsive and customer-focused service.
• Lead, supervise and support the Service Desk team, allocating workloads, monitoring performance and ensuring responsibilities are clearly defined.
• Establish and maintain consistent processes for receiving, recording, categorising, prioritising and allocating maintenance requests.
• Provide guidance on complex, sensitive and urgent requests, identifying training needs and supporting staff development.
• Promote accountability, teamwork, continuous improvement and high standards of customer service.

2. Job Ticket Management and Allocation

• Oversee incoming maintenance requests, job tickets and service reports, ensuring accurate recording, categorisation and prioritisation.
• Allocate jobs to the appropriate maintenance teams, trades, specialist contractors or service providers.
• Differentiate between routine, normal, reactive and urgent jobs, applying appropriate response and escalation procedures.
• Ensure tickets contain sufficient information, including location, issue description, access requirements and supporting details.
• Monitor outstanding and in-progress jobs, identifying backlogs, delays and service delivery issues.
• Liaise with maintenance managers and supervisors to confirm job ownership, availability, progress and completion.
• Ensure job records are updated accurately and completed work is recorded in the relevant system.
• Escalate unresolved, overdue or high-priority jobs to the appropriate manager or operational lead.

3. Reactive and Urgent Maintenance Coordination

• Coordinate the prioritisation and allocation of reactive maintenance requests according to urgency, risk and operational impact.
• Ensure urgent and emergency reports are identified promptly and escalated in accordance with university procedures.
• Liaise with maintenance teams, security, health and safety personnel and other stakeholders where incidents affect safety, campus operations or business continuity.
• Monitor urgent jobs through to resolution and ensure relevant stakeholders receive appropriate updates.
• Support compliance with agreed service-level agreements (SLAs), response times and attendance targets.
• Identify recurring issues, service blockers and trends in reactive maintenance demand, recommending improvements where appropriate.

4. Maintenance Team Scheduling and Resource Coordination

• Support maintenance supervisors and managers in preparing, coordinating and maintaining team schedules and work plans.
• Assist with work allocation based on priority, available resources, staff capacity, specialist skills and operational requirements.
• Monitor daily workloads and upcoming work to balance planned activities with reactive demand.
• Coordinate schedule changes arising from urgent jobs, staff availability, access restrictions and changing campus priorities.
• Identify resource constraints, scheduling conflicts and potential delays in liaison with team leaders.
• Support effective shift and team handovers, ensuring outstanding work and priority issues are communicated clearly.
• Maintain accurate scheduling information and ensure work allocation reflects current operational priorities.

5. Overnight and Out-of-Hours Reporting

• Review overnight and out-of-hours reports at the start of each working day, identifying incidents, urgent issues and outstanding actions.
• Ensure incidents and jobs are accurately recorded and allocated to the appropriate maintenance teams.
• Identify unresolved issues, repeat incidents and risks requiring escalation to management or specialist teams.
• Coordinate follow-up actions and ensure clear ownership of outstanding work.
• Facilitate effective handovers between out-of-hours services, the Service Desk and daytime operational teams.
• Monitor out-of-hours callouts, urgent requests and repeat faults to identify service improvement opportunities.
• Ensure significant incidents are reported to relevant stakeholders in accordance with university procedures.

6. Management Information, Dashboards and Performance Reporting

• Produce, maintain and distribute service desk dashboards and management reports for maintenance teams, supervisors and senior management.
• Report on job volumes, status, priorities, outstanding work, response times, completion rates and SLA performance.
• Monitor reactive maintenance trends, urgent requests, overdue jobs and workload distribution.
• Provide tailored dashboards and reports to support individual maintenance teams in managing workloads and performance.
• Ensure reporting data is accurate, consistent and meaningful, investigating discrepancies where necessary.
• Prepare performance information for operational reviews, highlighting key issues and improvement opportunities.

7. Customer Service and Stakeholder Communication

• Ensure a professional, responsive and customer-focused service for university staff, students and other stakeholders.
• Facilitate effective communication between service users, maintenance teams and university departments.
• Ensure appropriate updates are provided on job progress, delays and resolutions.
• Manage escalated queries and complaints relating to job allocation, response times and service delivery.
• Work collaboratively with Estates and Facilities colleagues and other departments to support campus operations.
• Consider the specific requirements of teaching spaces, laboratories, student accommodation, offices and specialist facilities when coordinating maintenance.

8. Systems, Compliance and Continuous Improvement

• Ensure effective use of the university’s Computer-Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) or other service management systems.
• Maintain accurate records in accordance with university procedures and information management requirements.
• Review service desk processes and recommend improvements to efficiency, accuracy and consistency.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, escalation processes and service desk guidance.
• Work with operational managers to improve job categorisation, priority definitions, reporting quality and workflows.
• Ensure safety-critical issues are escalated appropriately and maintain awareness of relevant health and safety requirements.
• Support service improvements, system changes and the introduction of new ways of working.