Interim Applications & Customer Platforms Operations Manager

Interim Applications & Customer Platforms Operations Manager

Contract: 3 months
Location: Hybrid (2 days per week onsite)

We are seeking an experienced Interim Applications & Customer Platforms Operations Manager to provide day-to-day operational leadership for a Business Applications & Customer Platforms team during a short-term transition period.

This role is focused on maintaining service stability, managing team performance, and ensuring the smooth delivery of operational activities. It is not a strategic or transformation-focused position.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the team on a day-to-day basis, managing attendance, annual leave, sickness, and resource planning to ensure effective service coverage.
• Allocate, prioritise, and oversee workloads across business applications, customer-facing platforms, and systems analysis activities.
• Ensure team members have clear priorities and deliver against agreed objectives and service expectations.
• Monitor operational performance, ensuring incidents, service requests, changes, and support activities are delivered within agreed timescales.
• Manage backlogs effectively, reallocating work where necessary to maintain service levels and operational control.
• Work closely with the Service Desk and wider Digital teams to ensure seamless escalation, handover, and resolution of application-related issues.
• Act as the primary escalation point for operational issues, driving resolution and minimising service disruption.
• Monitor service performance, capacity, and workload levels, proactively identifying risks and implementing corrective actions.
• Provide regular updates to senior stakeholders on operational delivery, risks, issues, and team performance.
• Maintain high standards of accountability, performance, and service delivery across the team.

Requirements

• Proven experience managing IT Operations, Application Support, or Business Applications teams.
• Strong people management skills with the ability to motivate teams and manage performance effectively.
• Experience coordinating workloads across multiple service areas in a fast-paced operational environment.
• Demonstrable experience handling escalations, managing incidents, and ensuring service continuity.
• Strong organisational skills with a proactive, delivery-focused approach.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both technical teams and senior stakeholders.

Desirable Experience

• Experience working within Local Government or the public sector.

Awareness of enterprise applications such as:

• Liquidlogic
• Civica Housing
• Civica Revenues & Benefits
• iLearn
• SAP
• MI Portal

Direct hands-on experience with these systems is not required, however knowledge of similar business-critical applications would be advantageous.