Helpdesk Team Leader

Helpdesk Team Leader

Location: Clearwater Court office, Reading –
Hybrid role

Our Developer Services Helpdesk is the front door for our customers, handling around 90,000 inbound calls every year. In this role you will inspire and lead a team of Customer Service Agents to deliver a consistently great customer experience, hit key performance targets, and ensure robust process compliance – directly helping to reduce complaints and improve our DMEX performance.

This is an exciting time to join the team. You’ll play a key leadership role as we embark on a major system transformation, guiding your people through change with confidence and energy. If you’re passionate about customer experience, thrive in a fast‑paced environment, and enjoy leading teams through change, this role offers real impact and opportunity.

• Lead performance in real time – actively manage a team of Customer Service Agents to consistently meet SLAs, abandoned call targets and wider operational measures.
• Coach for success – provide regular, meaningful coaching and feedback to ensure quality standards, processes and performance targets are achieved.
• Build a high‑performing, engaged team – use a range of engagement tools and HR best‑practice to motivate your team and create a positive, inclusive culture.
• Own the customer experience – confidently handle escalated customer calls and role‑model the excellent service you expect from your team.
• Communicate with impact – run effective team meetings, huddles and 1:1s, bringing key messages and performance measures to life in creative ways.
• Develop your people – ensure your team has the right training, support and development to thrive in their roles, including delivery of “Hear For You” action plans.
• Drive continuous improvement – use CSAT, customer insight and frontline feedback to identify pain points and make meaningful improvements for customers and colleagues.
• Lead change with confidence – guide your team through business and system changes, ensuring impacts are understood, training is completed and your team feels supported while acting as a strong advocate for change.

• Confident communicator – a strong verbal and written communicator, comfortable engaging customers and influencing stakeholders at all levels of the organisation.
• Performance‑focused leader – proven experience leading teams to consistently deliver KPIs such as quality and CSAT, ideally within a fast‑paced contact centre environment.
• People‑first leadership – skilled at motivating and engaging teams in creative, practical ways to achieve targets while building a positive, high‑performing culture.
• Change leader – experienced in guiding teams through system implementations and significant business change, ensuring clarity, buy‑in and successful adoption.
• Resilient and determined – brings grit, energy and perseverance to overcome challenges and maintain momentum in demanding operational environments.
• Commercially and data aware – able to use performance data and customer insight to inform decisions, with desirable experience in utilities or Developer Services and strong stakeholder engagement skills.

• Competitive salary between £33,000 to £40,000 per annum.
• 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with length of service (plus bank holidays)
• Generous Pension Scheme through AON
• Access to lots of benefits to help you take care of you and your family’s health and wellbeing, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling, to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Thames Water complies with the Equality Act 2010. We are an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from everyone and want to ensure you feel supported throughout the recruitment process. If you need any adjustments, whether that’s extra time, accessible formats or anything else just let us know, we’re here to help and support.