2nd Line Team Lead

Who we are and what we do

Hachette UK is a creative powerhouse and the UK's second largest book publishing group. Our mission is to make it easy for everyone to discover new worlds of ideas, learning, entertainment and opportunity.

We're made up of 10 autonomous publishing divisions and over 60 imprints with a rich and diverse history and an incredible range of authors. We're also the market leader in e-books and publish a range of bestsellers in audio format, the fastest growing part of our business.

Our award-winning adult publishing divisions are Orion, which won Publisher of the Year at the 2021 British Book Awards; Little, Brown; John Murray Press; Hodder & Stoughton; Headline; Octopus, and Bookouture. They publish fiction and non-fiction in digital, audio and print format, from the world's best and most diverse authors, including Brit Bennett, Candice Carty-Williams, Martina Cole, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, Nelson Mandela, Stephenie Meyer, Maggie O'Farrell, Delia Owens, Ian Rankin, J.K. Rowling, Colson Whitehead, and Malala Yousafzai. Hachette Children's Group publishes a wide and vibrant range of books for children across all age ranges, while Hachette Learning is a market leader in resources for both primary and secondary schools.

Hachette UK is part of Hachette Livre, the world's third largest trade and educational publisher. As well as our headquarters in Carmelite House, London, and our state-of-the-art book distribution centre in Didcot, Oxfordshire, we have recently opened five new offices in Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. The UK region also includes offices in Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, the Caribbean, and Ireland.

It's an exciting time to join our business because the publishing market continues to grow and thrive. The UK remains the largest exporter of physical books in the world and book adaptations for film and TV are the foundation of the UK's creative industries.

What you'll be doing

The role combines technical expertise with team leadership responsibilities, acting as a key escalation point for the 2nd line team while overseeing workload management, resource planning and team development. The post holder will work collaboratively with wider IT teams to drive service improvement and maintain high levels of customer service across the business.

This role plays a key part in creating a consistent and positive technology experience for our colleagues across Hachette UK. You will be leading a team that helps thousands of users deliver our mission to make it easy to discover new worlds.

• Managing and coordinating the day-to-day activities of the 2nd line support team, ensuring effective workload distribution and service delivery.
• Ensuring incidents and requests are managed effectively within agreed Service Level Agreements (SLAs), maintaining accurate records and ensuring tickets are updated appropriately throughout the incident lifecycle.
• Building effective working relationships with wider IT teams, including third-line support and infrastructure teams, to ensure timely escalation and resolution of complex technical issues.
• Monitoring and managing ticket queues, ensuring incidents are prioritised correctly and progressed in a timely manner.
• Ensuring appropriate team and shift coverage across Carmelite, Didcot and Sheffield to meet operational requirements and maintain service continuity.
• Conducting regular one-to-one meetings, catch-ups and performance reviews to support employee performance, wellbeing and development.
• Providing leadership, coaching and mentoring to team members to encourage continuous improvement, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• Maintaining accurate documentation of issues, troubleshooting activities and resolutions within the service management system (knowledge base).
• knowledge base articles and technical documentation to support knowledge sharing and improve service efficiency. Contributing to
• Supporting the delivery of a high-quality IT support service by monitoring team performance, identifying service improvements and promoting adherence to IT service management processes and standards.
• Identifying recurring technical issues and contributing to continuous improvement initiatives to enhance service performance and user experience.

Onsite presence 5 days a week at the London office. Regular travel to other national offices.

Who we are looking for

We’re ideally looking for someone who is a strong technical resource and can comfortably lead a team of technical analysts. A strong communicator will be necessary in this position, with the ability to inspire team members and collaborate effectively with the broader business.

With all that in mind, we are looking for a candidate that can demonstrate some or all of the following skills and experiences:

The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Significant experience working within an IT Service Desk, deskside support or technical support environment, including experience operating within SLA-driven support models.
• Strong technical troubleshooting and diagnostic skills across Windows and macOS operating systems within an enterprise environment.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft 365 technologies including Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint and Exchange Online administration and troubleshooting.
• Experience supporting identity and access management technologies including Active Directory, Azure Active Directory (Entra ID), group policies, MFA and user account administration.
• Experience supporting endpoint management and deployment technologies such as Intune, SCCM, Autopilot, JAMF or equivalent endpoint management platforms.
• Strong understanding of IT service management processes including incident, request, problem, change and major incident management.
• Experience acting as an escalation point for complex technical incidents, coordinating issue resolution across support teams and maintaining service continuity.
• Experience monitoring service performance, ticket queues and SLA compliance within a fast-paced operational environment.
• Experience conducting one-to-one meetings, performance reviews and supporting employee development and coaching activities.
• Ability to balance operational leadership responsibilities with hands-on technical support and incident management activities.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, make operational decisions and maintain service continuity during periods of high demand.

Personal Attributes/Skills

• Leadership and team management
• Technical troubleshooting and escalation management
• Incident and problem management
• Stakeholder communication and relationship management
• Team development, coaching and mentoring
• Workload, rota and resource management
• Customer service excellence
• Collaboration and cross-team working
• Organisational and prioritisation skills
• Continuous service improvement
• Operational service delivery and performance management

What we offer

Our staff are our greatest asset, and our benefits reflect this:

• 28 annual leave days per year, increases to 29 days after 2 years' service and goes up to 30 days after 5 years' (+ bank holidays)
• Private medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Generous pension schemes
• Rent deposit loans
• 2 community days per year
• Summer hours (finishing at 1pm on Fridays during the summer months)
• Retail discounts through Hachette rewards
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Eye care vouchers
• Wide-ranging training library
• Development programmes (including mentoring)
• Up to 70% off book purchases
• A charity bookshelf
• An active range of staff-led employee networks that are voluntary, including AgeWise, Gender Balance, Thrive, Pride, All Together, Wellbeing, Women in Tech and religious networks
• Season ticket loans
• And much more!

The role will be based at our London office, 5 days a week.

Our commitment

Hachette employs people on the basis of their abilities. We aim to attract and develop talent from a base as broad as the world of readers we want to reach, with a wide and representative range of age, faith, disability, race, gender, sexuality and socio-economic, regional and cultural backgrounds.

We want everyone to have the opportunity to perform at their best during our recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, you can let us know at the ‘Reasonable Adjustments’ section of your application. We’ll make sure you’re supported throughout the process. 

The Book Trade Charity offers financial support to people looking to enter the book trade but who may struggle to afford the costs of attending interviews and undertaking junior roles. For more information visit www.booktradeentrysupport.org