Operations Analyst

The Home Office works to build a safe, fair and prosperous UK. We achieve this through our work on counter-terrorism, policing, crime, drugs policy, immigration and passports.

Home Office Digital designs, builds and develops services for the rest of the department and for government. Every year our systems support up to 3 million visa applications, checks on 100 million border crossings, up to 8 million passport applications and deliver 140 million police checks on people, vehicles and property.

You will be part of a cutting-edge IT Operations Centre (ITOC) function conducting real-time monitoring of core technology, infrastructure, applications and services within the Home Office, providing a consolidated operational view of the technical estate and facilitating 24/7/365 support and recovery.

You will be part of a team focused on providing industry-leading approaches to technical estate management, exploiting the latest technologies, techniques and service management practices to provide innovative solutions for real-time monitoring, automation and industrialisation of services. Working closely with teams such as the Service Desk, Incident Managers, Project Managers, Service Transition, suppliers and the Cyber-Security Operations Centre (CSOC), to ensure services are effectively monitored, incidents are addressed, and services are restored within agreed service level agreements.

You will be expected to mentor more junior members of the Service Management community as well as participating and supporting collaboration initiatives and career development within the IT Operations community, building in-house capability via a professional community of practice.

Key responsibilities

• Using enterprise monitoring tools to monitor infrastructure, network and applications for alerts and events that could impact the services provided to users of Home Office technology.
• Raising incidents in a Service Management toolset, logging and initiating necessary resolution activities.
• Supporting incident and problem resolution activities, regularly engaging with other Home Office Digital teams and / or suppliers to ensure service. performance, availability and security is maintained in line with agreed SLAs.
• Tracking incidents using service management tools, and producing supporting reports / data as required.
• Understanding and adhering to ITOC and ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) event, incident and problem management policies, procedures, OLAs and SLAs.
• Providing a comprehensive update and handover of ongoing issues to resolver teams and to the incoming ITOC team during shift handovers.
• Identify operational issues, report observations from daily monitoring, and assist senior staff with process improvements.
• Provide Monitoring Team support to wider live service reviews, verify monitoring and alert setups, and help maintain accurate operational documentation.

Working Pattern

Due to the business requirements of this role, it is only available on a full-time basis with shift working.

This is a shift-based role which involves working 2 days and 2 nights on a 4 on/4 off rolling basis.

Successful candidates will be expected to work from the Manchester Soapworks office for at least 60% of standard working hours currently, including bank holidays and weekends.

Successful candidates will need to be able to attend for all shifts including early starts, overnight shifts, bank holidays and weekends. These shifts may be outside of public transport operating hours.

Please note that all shift patterns are indicative of the current working arrangement and may be subject to change in line with business requirements.

Travel

Occasional travel may also be required to other Home Office locations. Any associated costs will be reimbursed in line with Home Office policy.

Essential criteria

Youll have a demonstrable passion for IT support, with the following skills or strong experience in:

• good interpersonal skills, with an ability to communicate effectively and professionally
• ability to work as part of a team and to engage effectively with suppliers and customers
• knowledge of networks, operating systems, middleware, and applications, with a willingness to learn new technologies and maintain industry knowledge
• good analytical and problem-solving skills
• demonstrating a strong sense of ownership and drive to follow tasks through to completion
• maintaining a customer focus

The essential skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework (based on the industry standard SFIA framework- Use the levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each technical skill listed). Please see below for the relevant skills for your role:

Content Management

• Knowledge Management (KNOW) level 1

Service Management

• Incident Management (USUP) level 3
• Change Control (CHMG) level 2
• Service Level Management (SLMO) level 3

Technology Management

• IT Infrastructure (ITOP) level 3

Stakeholder Management

• Customer Service Support (CSMG) level 2

Desirable criteria

• Ideally you will also have the following skills or some experience in using an enterprise monitoring tools to monitor infrastructure, network and applications
• understanding of ITIL, Lean, SIAM, Agile and DevOps principles within a Product-centric delivery model