IT Infrastructure EUC & Collaboration Service Manager

Who are we?

Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries.

People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities - work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering - you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.

IT Infrastructure EUC & Collaboration Service Manager

Accountable for the end-to-end quality, availability and user experience of Infrastructure, End User Computing (EUC) and Collaboration services delivered through outsourced service providers. Act as the retained service management lead, translating business requirements into service outcomes and holding providers accountable for contractual delivery, operational controls and continuous improvement. Work across a global organisation covering the UK, Europe, AsiaPac and US, partnering with business units, Service Desk, Security, Architecture and delivery teams. Scope includes hybrid cloud and data centre infrastructure, managed endpoints, identity dependencies and Microsoft 365 collaboration services.

Maintain clear service ownership, support models and escalation paths across retained teams and providers. Lead operational governance, monitoring SLA/KPI performance, recurring issues and corrective actions. Govern service transition and acceptance, ensuring operational readiness, documentation, knowledge transfer, resilience and early-life support, while maintaining a prioritised service improvement plan informed by service trends, user feedback and operational risk.

Reporting Line: Head of Infrastructure & Operations

Travel Requirements: Occasional travel to UK office locations as required.

Work Pattern: Full Time, Permanent, Hybrid London

Job Specific Skills Profile

Essential Service Management and Technical Skills

• Strong understanding of managed endpoint services, including Intune, Autopilot, configuration profiles and application deployment, sufficient to challenge provider designs, controls and delivery quality.
• Understanding of Tanium, application packaging, patch deployment, endpoint lifecycle management and compliance reporting across managed device estates.
• Proven experience managing enterprise IT services delivered by outsourced providers, including service reviews, SLA assurance, escalation management and cross-supplier coordination.
• Practical knowledge of IT service management, including incident, major incident, problem, change, request, configuration, availability and capacity management.
• Strong understanding of Windows desktop services, device provisioning, remote support, user experience monitoring and the management of recurring endpoint issues.
• Ability to interpret service dashboards, operational data and commercial reports, and assess PowerShell or other automation proposals for supportability and measurable benefit.
• Working knowledge of identity and access controls, MFA, endpoint protection, encryption, DLP, secure web access, logging and vulnerability remediation, with clear ownership between service providers and Security.
• Strong understanding of Microsoft 365 collaboration services, including Teams, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive; oversight of service health, messaging, meeting services, external sharing and information lifecycle controls with relevant owners.

Desirable Experience

• ITIL qualification or equivalent practical experience; familiarity with multi-provider service integration, commercial governance and service management platforms.
• Experience governing Windows Server services, technology lifecycle risks and remediation of unsupported infrastructure.
• Good knowledge of Active Directory, DHCP, DNS & Group Policy, and Intune.
• Good knowledge of Azure & Nutanix
• Experience with Microsoft 365 service transitions, tenant migrations and collaboration adoption initiatives.
• Knowledge of identity management solutions such as Entra ID
• Knowledge of proxy services such as Netskope

The role requires:

• Demonstrate successful ownership of outsourced services, including recovery of underperforming services and delivery of measurable improvements.
• Influence providers and internal stakeholders without direct managerial authority, maintaining constructive relationships while challenging decisions with evidence and ensuring clear accountability.
• Demonstrate a very high level of customer service and empathy to the customer issues.
• Worked in the insurance or financial services sector previously.
• Exercise sound judgement under pressure, prioritise by business impact and risk, and escalate material service or commercial concerns promptly.
• Be an excellent all-round communicator through verbal and written communication, possibly multi-lingual with Spanish being highly desirable.

Core Responsibilities for all Staff

Achieve Results through Relationships with All Parties

• Contribute through individual performance to achieving Group and/or Company objectives
• Build lasting relationships with internal clients, suppliers, third parties and other staff

Delivery of Service

• Consistently deliver an excellent and comprehensive service

Conduct and Integrity

• Ensure all dealings are carried out with integrity and professionalism
• Act in utmost good faith, in accordance with Group and/or Company policies and never risk the Company’s or the Group’s reputation

Development and Professionalism

• Continually strengthen skills and knowledge
• Develop others where you are responsible for their performance
• Must possess a passion for quality and continuous improvement
• Able to multi-task and prioritise appropriately

General Responsibilities

Clients

• Develop strong relationships with the Business Units
• Respond to the Business Units’ requirements as appropriate
• Support the business units with their use of the IT systems
• Behave with all clients (both internal and external) fairly and ethically with excellent customer service
• Take ownership of issues and provide updates to users on outstanding issues.

Administration

• Keep records on Group and Company systems up to date at all times
• Interpret instructions and issues arising, and then implement actions according to policies and procedures

Support

• Act as the service escalation point for the Group IT Service Desk; coordinate providers during major incidents and ensure clear business communications, effective restoration and agreed follow-up actions.
• Ensure provider changes follow agreed change control, with business impact assessment, testing, approvals, communications, rollback plans and post-implementation review where required.
• Assure that providers maintain accurate runbooks, support documentation, knowledge articles, asset and configuration records, and service dependency information.
• Require prompt root cause analysis after significant service disruption, challenge findings and track corrective and preventive actions to closure supported by evidence.
• Drive cross-provider problem management for recurring incidents, maintaining prioritised problem records, workarounds and permanent resolution plans.
• Govern endpoint and collaboration service delivery, including joiner, mover and leaver hand-offs, device fulfilment, patching, application availability and collaboration incidents, in line with agreed service ownership.

Service Outcomes and Reporting

• Provide a consolidated service scorecard covering availability, incident restoration and recurrence, request fulfilment, change success, backlog ageing, user satisfaction and provider improvement actions.
• Report endpoint patch and security-control compliance, recovery test outcomes, lifecycle risks, licence utilisation and expenditure against budget, using agreed data sources and clearly identified exceptions.
• Agree metric definitions, targets and reporting frequency with service owners and providers in line with contracts and business priorities; explain deviations, business impact and recovery plans rather than reporting headline SLA results alone.

Compliance

• Ensure compliance with all applicable Group and /or Company policies and procedures
• Ensure correct authorisation is obtained and processes followed when required by the Group and/or Company policies and procedures
• Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements
• Obtain provider evidence for agreed security, access, patching, data protection and operational resilience controls; support audits and third-party assurance, maintain service risks and remediation plans, and escalate exceptions to the appropriate risk owner. Risk acceptance remains with authorised business owners.
• Keep your performance, HR and T&C records current and compliant with Group requirements
• Maintain accurate records and deal with correspondence appropriately
• Ensure compliance with Anti Bribery and Corruption policy and procedures

What do we offer in return?

A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity - there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:

• Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new

• We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges

• We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond

Reasonable adjustments

We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.

If you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application - if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.

*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.