Customer Contact Manager

Can you lead a high-performing contact centre team, using service standards, KPIs and performance insights to drive continuous improvement?

Have you successfully delivered business process improvements that improved customer or operational outcomes?

Are you experienced in leading change programmes within customer-facing environments, ensuring smooth implementation and colleague engagement?

If so, we’d love to hear from you!

Join a dynamic, customer-focused team at the heart of service delivery, supporting thousands of customers each year. Working in a fast-paced operational environment, you will collaborate with colleagues across the organisation to deliver excellent outcomes, shape future ways of working and contribute to strategic priorities. This is an exciting opportunity to make a meaningful impact, leading people through transformation while helping to drive a culture of innovation, continuous learning and customer excellence

Joining our department comes with many benefits, including:

• Employer pension contribution of 28.97% of your salary. Read more about Civil Service Pensions here
• 25 days annual leave, increasing by 1 day each year of service (up to a maximum of 30 days annual leave), plus 8 bank holidays a privilege day for the King’s birthday
• Flexible working options where we encourage a great work-life balance.

Read more in the Benefits section below!

Find out more about what it's like working at MCA.

This is an exciting opportunity to shape and lead customer service delivery within the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. As Customer Contact Manager, you will drive a customer-focused strategy, lead high-performing teams, and influence service excellence across a vital operational area. Working closely with senior leaders and business partners, you will play a key role in improving performance, enhancing the customer experience, and delivering efficient, high-quality services that support the UK's maritime sector.

Your responsibilities will include, but aren’t limited to:

• Direct line management of 5 Customer Mangers (EO grade) and responsibility for supporting the day to day team performance to achieve the agreed service standards and KPIs.
• Report directly to the Head of Customer Operations highlighting risks, opportunities and department performance.
• Maintain effective working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders relevant to the team’s work.
• Line manages the Customer Service Managers ensuring personal and professional development opportunities are explored, setting and reviewing objectives
• Measure Seafarer Operations Customer Service through monitoring Customer Satisfaction returns, deliver continuous improvement strategies and set action plans for improving the customer experience ensuring your teams are delivering a first-class service.
• Prioritise and drive staff engagement, creating a motivated work environment - celebrate success and act on feedback from MCA Staff Survey Results and departmental pulse surveys
• Manage Recruitment and Resourcing for Seafarer Operations to ensure resource is at the optimum level in line with achieving operational KPI’s and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

Great line management is important to us as an organisation, and we will equip and support line managers to develop the skills set out in the Civil Service Line Management Standards

For further information on the role, please read the role profile. Please note that the role profile is for information purposes only - whilst all elements are relevant to the role, they may not all be assessed during the recruitment process. This job advert will detail exactly what will be assessed during the recruitment process.

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

How to apply:

Our selection process ensures a comprehensive assessment of each applicant's qualifications, skills, and potential fit within our organisation.

The selection process for this role will be:

Stage 1: Sift of CV and personal statement

Stage 2: Assessment & Interview

You must be successful at each stage to progress to the next stage.

Stage 1: Sift

At sift, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

• Experience – you will be asked to provide a CV (unlimited wordcount) and personal statement (1000-word count). Please provide evidence of your Experience of the following: Knowledge and experience of managing a Contact Centre, and team managers and monitoring performance against service standards and KPIs.
• Knowledge of principles for implementing business process improvements, for example Lean Six Sigma
• Proven track record of successfully managing or delivering a change programme in a customer-facing business.
• A proven track record in stakeholder engagement, including interpersonal skills which promote effective interaction with internal and external stakeholders.

The sift will take place week commencing 14/09/2026

Stage 2: Assessment & Interview

For the assessment portion, you will be invited to complete a role play scenario. You will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

• Behaviours – Managing a Quality Service and Communicating and Influencing.

For the interview portion, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements:

• Behaviours – Changing and Improving, Leadership, Communicating and Influencing and Managing a Quality Service
• Strengths

The interviews will take place week commencing 21/09/2026

The assessment and interview will be conducted online via Mircosoft Teams. Further details will be provided to you should you be selected for interview.

You can find out more about our hiring process, how to apply, and application and interview guidance on our careers site (opens in a new window).

Please note that we will try to meet the dates set out in the advert. There may be occasions when these dates will change

Further information on the selection process

We will also hold a 12-month reserve list for this role, which may lead to potential opportunities beyond the role you applied for.

Reasonable Adjustments

As a Disability Confident Leader employer, we are committed to ensuring that the recruitment process is fair, accessible and allows all candidates to perform at their best. If a person with a visible or non-visible disability is substantially disadvantaged, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need during the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at an interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.

If you need a reasonable adjustment so that you can complete your application, you should contact Government Recruitment Service via dftrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.

Document Accessibility

This job advert contains links to the DfT Careers website. Our website provides useful guidance and information that can support you during the application process. If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert or the information on our website, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

Further Information

For more information about how we hire, and for useful tips on submitting your application for this role, visit the How We Hire page of our DfT Careers website. You can find detailed information about the recruitment process and what to expect when applying for a role.

Pre-employment Checking

If your application is successful but you have been dismissed from the Civil Service, your application could be removed at the pre-employment checking stage depending on the nature of the dismissal.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment. A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5-year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

All external applicants and current employees of accredited non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) will be required to undergo a Social Media Check. A Social Media Check is a review of your publicly available online activity, typically across platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and others. The purpose is to identify any public posts or content that could raise concerns for employers, such as:

• Hate speech or discriminatory behaviour
• Threats or acts of violence
• Illegal activity or substance misuse
• Sexually explicit material
• Extremist views or affiliations

Importantly, this check does not involve hacking into your accounts or accessing private messages. It only considers content you have chosen to make public. Employers use this kind of screening to help ensure their workplace remains safe, inclusive, and aligned with company values. It’s not about judging your personality or lifestyle - it’s about checking for potential red flags that might affect the role or company culture. If you have questions or concerns about the social media check, we would be happy to explain in more detail what’s being looked at and how your data is handled securely and fairly.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.