Service Assurance Manager - Retail & Customer

About us

Halfords is on a journey - building the future of motoring and cycling and looking for people who want to help shape what comes next. We’re a place for cocreators: people who want to make a real impact, take ownership and be part of something that’s still evolving.

Technology at Halfords is at a turning point. We’re modernising our foundations, sharpening our delivery, and ensuring every technology decision is connected to real commercial and customer outcomes.

We're looking for people who act as trusted advisors to the business, take end-to-end accountability for outcomes, and can balance pace with long-term architectural integrity. Innovation here means practical, scalable solutions, not ideas that stay on whiteboards.

Halfords operates a hybrid working policy – this position will be based 3 days per week at our support centre in Redditch, West Midlands.

About the role

As a Service Assurance Manager within our Technology Service and Operations team, you'll take ownership of the quality, performance, and commercial rigour of the technology partnerships that underpin how Halfords operates. This is a heavily commercial role, centred on supplier and contract management across a significant partner landscape, where you'll own relationships, hold partners to account, and ensure we're getting genuine value, innovation, and delivery against agreed KPIs.

Day to day, you'll manage contracts, lead supplier reviews, and assess whether we have the right scale and shape of supply base to support what we're trying to achieve. You'll ensure spend is properly aligned to cost centres and investment boards, support audit and governance activity, and work with the risk team on enterprise risk.

This is a high-influence role joining at a crucial moment as Halfords makes a significant push to modernise its technology organisation. There's real appetite from leadership to improve governance and supplier performance, and there's plenty to manage and put right, so you'll need to be comfortable rolling your sleeves up and operating with some ambiguity. If you're commercially sharp, confident at any level of conversation, and motivated by making a tangible difference to how a major retailer manages its technology partnerships, this could be the role for you.

Key responsibilities

Own the quality and performance of technology supplier and partner relationships, ensuring services are delivered against contracted KPIs and that partners are innovating and adding value
Lead commercial and contract management activity across the partner landscape, including contract negotiation, renewals, and ensuring obligations are clearly understood and met on both sides
Assess the supplier and partner landscape to ensure the organisation has the right partners at the right scale, identifying consolidation or rationalisation opportunities where appropriate
Ensure all technology spend is aligned to approved cost centres and investment boards, supporting financial budget planning and maintaining visibility of committed and forecast expenditure
Support audit and governance activity, working alongside the risk team to ensure enterprise risk is identified, owned, and managed appropriately
Operate within a squad-focused model, taking clear accountability across specific partnerships and service areas through a defined RACI structure
Maintain service performance reporting, providing transparent insight into availability, reliability, and operational risk across critical business systems
Collaborate with Service Experience Leads and internal teams to ensure operational insight informs service reviews and improvement activity

About you

Strong, demonstrable commercial experience in a supplier or partner management environment, including contract negotiation, commercial governance, and the ability to read and interpret complex contracts
Experience working within or alongside audit and governance processes, with an understanding of risk management frameworks
Confident communicator who can engage credibly at any level, from technical teams to exec stakeholders, and hold suppliers to account with clarity and professionalism
Comfortable working across a broad and complex supplier landscape, with the organisational skills to manage multiple relationships and priorities simultaneously
A working understanding of technology and how enterprise systems operate, sufficient to have meaningful conversations with partners and internal teams without needing to be hands-on technically
Background in supplier / service management, service assurance, or technology operations within a complex enterprise environment
Experience in retail, omnichannel, or 24/7 operational environments is advantageous, as is familiarity with ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow
Comfortable with ambiguity and able to operate effectively in an environment where not everything is defined yet. This is a role that rewards initiative and effort

Reward & benefits

A fair and competitive salary evaluated against market data, car allowance, annual discretionary bonus scheme, pension, life assurance, 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays and enhanced family leave.
Commitment and dedication to your ongoing personal and professional development. We help you to own and grow your potential so you can be at your best in your current role and to support your future career aspirations.
We offer hybrid working with a blend of working in our Support Centre and from home.  
You will have access to a wealth of employee discounts across the Halfords suite of products and services.
Wellbeing and inclusion are at the heart of our colleague experience. We offer resources and ongoing support to enhance your wellbeing at work and active Colleague Networks supporting inclusion initiatives across Halfords.

Not sure you meet all the criteria? We'd encourage you to take the wheel and apply anyway! At Halfords we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for our colleagues. We're an equal opportunities employer and proud to welcome applications from all backgrounds and embrace diversity within our one Halfords Family.

Note: Halfords operates a hybrid working policy – this position will be based 3 days per week at our support centre in Redditch, West Midlands.