Managed Services Manager /  Lead OR Head of Managed Services

This is a career-defining opportunity for an experienced technical consultant, engineer, or team lead ready to step up and own a service line.

Apto Solutions is entering a major growth phase. We aim to double our “Operate” managed service customer base this year. We need a strategic operator to take the reins of this service—not just to “keep the lights on,” but to mature our operational model, manage the product roadmap, and ensure our capacity and capability scales.

You won’t just be managing tickets; you will be building the “Total Operating Model” that allows our clients to move from reactive to proactive monitoring.

 

Key Responsibilities

Operational Responsibility and Delivery

  • Own the “Operate” Methodology: Ensure our delivery adheres to our 6-pillar framework (Platform, Data, Performance, Analytics, Reporting, Content Management).
  • KPI Management: Define and report on key performance indicators (SLAs, response times, patch compliance) to ensure we meet agreed performance targets for every customer.
  • Capacity Planning: Maintain a forward-looking view of resource availability vs. customer demand. Ensure we have the right skills capability available at the right time as we scale.

Product Roadmap & Strategy

  • Product Owner for “Operate”: Manage the Operate product roadmap project. Prioritize with our teams internal tooling improvements, automation efforts, and service enhancements.  This includes delivery against product roadmap plans.
  • Service Evolution: Identify patterns across our customer base to standardise “OEM-operate” patterns (runbooks, health checks, onboarding) to make the service more efficient.
  • Commercial Awareness: Understand the commercial value and ensure service delivery costs remain aligned with margins.

Team & Stakeholder Management

  • Resource Management: Act as the conductor for our engineering resources, assigning the right consultants to the right “Operate” tasks.
  • Client Success: Be the escalation point for key customers, ensuring their “Business Objectives” are being met by our service.
  • Process Governance: Enforce quality control and governance functions to ensure the platform operates correctly and delivers value.

Customer leadership

  • Primary escalation point for Operate customers; calm, structured incident leadership when needed.
  • Ensure onboarding is consistent, expectations are clear, and customers feel momentum month-to-month. Quarterly senior led reviews.
  • Partner with sales/leadership on renewals/expansion by evidencing value through outcomes and reporting.

What “good” looks like (success measures)

  • Customer retention + expansion: renewals are smooth; more customers increase scope confidently.
  • Predictable delivery: roadmap items land; backlog stays healthy; firefighting reduces over time.
  • Operational maturity: operating model artefacts exist and are used (skills matrix, runbooks, governance, change control).
  • Standardised onboarding: time-to-onboard drops; fewer bespoke setups.

About You (The Background)

We are open to different backgrounds, but you are likely at a turning point in your career where you want to move from “hands-on keyboard” delivery to running a service capability.

  • Experience: 5+ years in a technical environment (Consultancy, MSP, SI, or SaaS product company).
  • Technical Literacy: You don’t need to code daily, but you must be credible with engineers. You understand the concepts of Splunk, Cribl, SIEM, or Observability and can translate “messy ingest problems” into operational tasks.
  • Tooling: Experience managing projects or workflows in JIRA is essential.
  • Mindset: You have a “Growth Mindset.” You see a manual process and want to automate it; you see a customer issue and want to build a systemic fix.

Desirable Skills

  • Experience establishing or refining an Operational Model (Incident/Problem management, shift rotations, on-call policies).
  • Knowledge of ITIL or similar service management frameworks (practical application preferred over rigid adherence).
  • Familiarity with data/telemetry pipelines (e.g., Cribl, OpenTelemetry) or Security Operations (SecOps).

Why Join Apto?

  • Impact: You will directly influence how we scale from a small bespoke shop to a structured managed services provider.
  • Culture: We are organised, accountable, and empathetic. We don’t do “hero culture”; we build sustainable systems.
  • Growth: As the service grows, so does your team and responsibility.

Suggested “Background” Section

“You might be a Senior Consultant tired of travel who wants to build a long-term stable service, a Service Desk Team Lead looking to manage a more complex technical product, or a Technical Project Manager who wants to own the P&L and operational success of a product.”

 

Common good trajectories:

  • Senior engineer / SRE → Service Lead: technically credible, now wants ownership of outcomes and customers.
  • Consultant / delivery lead → Managed service owner: strong stakeholder management + can run rhythms and prioritisation.
  • Technical manager already running ops/support: wants a smaller, higher-ownership environment.

 

Working pattern

  • Bristol office: 3 days/week, remote: 2 days/week (consistent with your existing role patterns).

 

 

 

See how we can build your digital capability,
call us on +44(0)845 226 3351 or send us an email…

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