Cloud and Platform Operations Service Manager

Manager

SIAM Service Performance Manager

 

Job Title:

Service Manager – Cloud and Platform Operations 

Area:

Group Digital – Service Operations

Location:

UK

Reporting:

Service Operations Lead – Cloud and Platform Operations

Grade:

C                                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

SFIA Skill:

Multiple

SFIA Level:

4/5

 

• Manage the operation, performance and continual improvement of cloud and platform services, ensuring SLAs, security requirements and quality standards are consistently met. (ITMG) 

• Monitor and analyse service performance, negotiate and maintain SLAs, and initiate actions to maintain or improve service levels. (SLMO) 

• Prioritise, diagnose and manage incidents — leading major incident response, root‑cause analysis and improvements to prevent recurrence. (USUP) 

• Investigate, document and resolve underlying problems, coordinating cross‑team fixes, analysing trends and implementing preventative measures. (PBMG) 

• Assess, plan and implement changes safely, ensuring risks are evaluated, approvals obtained and change processes followed to protect service integrity. (CHMG) 

• Plan, assess and coordinate release packages, ensuring controlled deployment, effective communication, risk mitigation and clear rollback options. (RELM) 

• Analyse availability performance, investigate breaches, support or lead DR planning/testing and recommend improvements to maintain agreed uptime. (AVMT) 

• Monitor and forecast capacity requirements, identify issues and support or lead capacity planning to ensure cloud and platform services scale effectively. (CPMG) 

• Apply and monitor security controls, investigate breaches, assess risks, ensure compliance with policies and recommend improvements to strengthen security. (SCTY) 

• Monitor and manage supplier performance, resolve operational issues collaboratively, benchmark service delivery and drive improvements. (SUPP) 

• Manage stakeholder expectations, facilitate clear communication, gather feedback and support decisions to maintain effective relationships. (RLMT) 

• Analyse processes, identify improvement opportunities, exploit technology/automation and contribute to organisational standards and guidelines. (BPRE)

 

Role Description

KPMG is part of a global network of firms that offers Audit, Tax & Pensions, Consulting, Deal Advisory and Technology services. Through the talent of over 20,000 colleagues, we bring our creativity and insight to our clients’ most critical challenges.   With offices across the UK and Switzerland, we work with everyone from small start-ups and individuals to major multinationals, in virtually every industry imaginable. Our work is often complex, yet our vision is simple: to be the clear choice for our clients, for our people and for the communities we work in. 

Group Digital is the internal technology division and is accountable for delivering a range of services to the UK and Swiss Firms. Taking a holistic approach, this includes gathering requirements, solution design, build and run and the execution of complex change portfolios focused on security, data, core infrastructure and business applications. 

As part of Service Operations within Group Digital, the role of Service Manager – Cloud and Platform Operations will manage all aspects of delivering platform services (including cloud & on-prem) delivered within Service Operations. The role will also work to maintain relationships with our vendors and evolve our cloud capability.

 

 

Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• Experience managing platform operations in regulated environments, ensuring controls are implemented, monitored, audit‑ready and supported by regularly tested disaster‑recovery processes. 

• Skilled in applying ITIL 4 practices, including managing major incidents, contributing to problem investigations and improvements, coordinating change activity, and maintaining SLO/SLI and error‑budget adherence. 

• Hands‑on experience supporting Azure environments at scale, including landing zones, identity/RBAC, networking, storage, PaaS and container platforms, using Infrastructure‑as‑Code approaches. 

• Practical experience configuring and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Azure DevOps), supporting build and release processes, using feature flags/canary deployments and ensuring reliable rollback mechanisms. 

• Experience operating security and continuity controls including vulnerability and patch cycles, least‑privilege/RBAC enforcement, backup operation validation and support for defined RTO/RPO targets. 

• Skilled in managing MSP and SaaS vendors, monitoring SLAs/OLAs, contributing to service reviews and scorecards, and supporting cloud cost optimisation through forecasting, analysing consumption and using commitment models. 

• Familiarity with ITSM tooling such as ServiceNow/Jira, including incident/change governance, request workflows and contributing to accurate CMDB/service mapping for impact‑based change analysis.

• Experience collaborating across distributed teams, coordinating activities across time zones, sharing knowledge, and communicating effectively with stakeholders, service owners and senior leaders.

   

Key Competencies

• Customer-Centric Approach: Passionate about delivering outstanding service experiences and exceeding user expectations.

• Analytical Thinking: Capable of interpreting complex data to drive decisions and improvements.

• Collaboration: Able to build strong partnerships across teams, service providers, and end users.

• Adaptability: Comfortable navigating a dynamic, fast-paced environment and responding to changing priorities.

• Leadership: Skilled at motivating and managing teams to achieve high standards of service delivery.

 

 

 

Core Responsibilities

Platform Strategy & Governance

• Manage the UK and Swiss Firm’s platform portfolio—cloud and on‑prem (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS)—covering service health, security posture, lifecycle, change and compliance.
• Define and maintain the platform operating model, including SLOs/SLAs/KPIs, error budgets, on‑call approach and reporting.
• Ensure the continued adherence to technology standards and design guardrails within Platform Engineering (landing zones, regions, tagging, backup/DR tiers).
• Contribute to and coordinate the move from on‑prem to the target cloud platform in partnership with the transformation team.

Reliability Operations & Service Management

• Coordinate major-incident response and drive problem resolution activities, ensuring PIR actions are completed and recurrences prevented.
• Ensure observability tooling and practices are consistently applied and support the adoption of AIOps for early detection and automated remediation.
• Govern change, release and service‑acceptance processes, ensuring every new service or feature transitions cleanly into BAU operations.

Platform Engineering & Delivery Enablement

• Manage and prioritise Platform/DevOps intake, backlogs and sequencing across teams and service owners.
• Improve CI/CD and deployment practices by removing bottlenecks, supporting progressive delivery/feature flagging, and standardising rollback and readiness checks.

Security, Compliance & Continuity

• Apply and maintain security baselines and hardening standards for cloud, on‑prem and SaaS environments; operate vulnerability management and patching pipelines with posture dashboards.
• Ensure policy and regulatory obligations e.g. CE+ etc. are met using automated evidence; support the BCP/DR processes including immutable backups, cross‑region replication and regular test cycles.

Commercials, Vendors & Asset/Cost Lifecycle

• Manage vendors/MSPs and outsourced teams, tracking performance against SLAs/OLAs through scorecards, service management reporting and service reviews.
• Work with Finance on CAPEX/OPEX planning and consumption/capacity forecasting; re‑forecast as required and collaborate with FinOps on chargeback and cost‑optimisation reporting.
• Govern the asset and service lifecycle from adoption to retirement in line with global standards and policies.

Skills, Experience & Qualifications

Essential

• Experience managing platform operations in regulated environments, ensuring controls are implemented, monitored, audit‑ready and supported by regularly tested disaster‑recovery processes. 

• Skilled in applying ITIL 4 practices, including managing major incidents, contributing to problem investigations and improvements, coordinating change activity, and maintaining SLO/SLI and error‑budget adherence. 

• Hands‑on experience supporting Azure environments at scale, including landing zones, identity/RBAC, networking, storage, PaaS and container platforms, using Infrastructure‑as‑Code approaches. 

• Practical experience configuring and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Azure DevOps), supporting build and release processes, using feature flags/canary deployments and ensuring reliable rollback mechanisms. 

• Experience operating security and continuity controls including vulnerability and patch cycles, least‑privilege/RBAC enforcement, backup operation validation and support for defined RTO/RPO targets. 

• Skilled in managing MSP and SaaS vendors, monitoring SLAs/OLAs, contributing to service reviews and scorecards, and supporting cloud cost optimisation through forecasting, analysing consumption and using commitment models. 

• Familiarity with ITSM tooling such as ServiceNow/Jira, including incident/change governance, request workflows and contributing to accurate CMDB/service mapping for impact‑based change analysis.

• Experience collaborating across distributed teams, coordinating activities across time zones, sharing knowledge, and communicating effectively with stakeholders, service owners and senior leaders.

Experience Level

Mid Level