Operations Manager
Job Title: Operations Manager
Salary: The starting salary is £59,839, which includes allowances totalling £2,928.
The salary is broken down as £56,911 basic salary, which will increase annually until you reach the top of the scale £69,342. Plus, a location allowance of £1,928 and a non-pensionable allowance of £1,000.
Location: Perivale Car Pound and Charlton Car Pound
This is an exciting time to be working as an Operations Manager for the Metropolitan Police Service. In addition to large-scale transformation, there's the unique and ever-evolving challenge of policing London. This means that as a Met employee, there are more opportunities for you to get involved in making London the safest global city in a time of unprecedented change within the UK's largest Police Service.
The Vehicle Recovery Examination Service (VRES) is a key part of the Metropolitan Police Service’s (MPS) drive to tackle vehicle crime on the streets of London. We work in partnership with a number of external agencies and MPS contractors to remove, recover, restore and dispose of vehicles that are involved in collisions, serious and organised crime that require forensic examinations or those that are seized under Police powers for no insurance or unlicensed use. We support frontline policing and operate 24/7/365, we have our own unique in-house policing team and a command and control team.
We operate out of two forensic compounds at Perivale and Charlton, processing approximately 40,000 vehicles per year. We deal with everything from two-wheel bikes all the way up to and including HGV’s. Our work has a direct impact upon the service the MPS delivers to Londoners and it is vital we are able to continue to deliver this service to meet current and future demands. Right now, it is a particularly exciting time to join the team. We are currently undergoing a full business review aimed at identifying smarter ways of working and potential new growth opportunities both internally and externally.
- To champion the customer voice within VRES
- Manage budgets, policies, and procedures to support the functional infrastructure and work with direct reports to ensure that performance, risk and impact are managed and continuously improved
- Managing all aspects of contract lifecycle, from negotiation and execution to compliance monitoring, ensuring alignment with legal and business requirements.
- To build the bridge between customer requirements and front-line delivery
- To assist the Head of Customer Relationships and Operations in developing long term customer demand profiles
- To implement the customer strategy through development and deployment of tactical delivery plans, surge demand management and incident support
- Lead collaboration with senior customer partnerships including chairing working groups to identify and implement service improvements
- Act as conduit between future and current state for customer requirements and build the detailed demand plan with assigned customer groups
- Engage with senior front-line officers and staff to establish short-term customer demands whilst working on longer-term solutions.
- Drive operational delivery of assigned team in the pursuit of service excellence. Constantly looking at opportunities to further enhance and improve the transactional process from end to end to support frontline policing, striving to reduce officer dwell times through efficient vehicle recovery deployment and management.
- Ensure compliance with H&S and COSHH obligations in respect to established MPS working practices and procedures
- Deliver daily, weekly, and monthly targets and report on KPIs
- Accurately translate medium term customer demand requirements into critical deliverable schemes of work
- Manage assigned team to deliver short to medium term functional objectives
- Manage assigned budgets to ensure that VRES works within its budgetary controls
- Manage and balance resourcing for assigned customer groups to provide effective and efficient 24/7 support to front line user groups, taking due account of the welfare of support staff
- Develop and maintain good working relationships with senior stakeholders in assigned customer groups
- Continually monitor wider VRES trends and developments outside of MPS to ensure VRES is at the forefront of its industry, including legislative and regulatory change
- Collect and analyse performance data for assigned customers
- Be the customer champion for continuous improvement, challenge existing practices and engage in and drive continuous improvement efforts
- Own standardised response plans for surge demand, planned and unplanned events, be ready to implement these when needed
- Provide an inclusive and innovative learning team environment, allow staff to grow, take responsibility for own actions and have the confidence to make effective decisions
- Evaluate staff performance, develop comprehensive training plans, ensuring all staff are aware of and able to work to VRES Management standards
- Organise training using appropriate methods in line with PDPs, career progression plans and future business requirements, own the skills matrix for assigned team
- Where required, support the delivery of ad hoc programmes, projects and continuous improvement initiatives across VRES and the wider MPS
- Contribute to ad hoc reviews of VRES performance
How to apply
To begin your career at the Met, please click the "apply now" button below. The application process requires a comprehensive CV, a Personal Statement, and an online application form. In your Personal Statement, you should explain your interest in the position and illustrate how your skills and experiences make you a suitable candidate. Please note that you should not submit two copies of your CV, and ensure that your documents are saved in either PDF or Word format, clearly labelled as CV and/or Personal Statement.
Completed applications must be submitted by 23:55 on 25th August 2025.
Once received, your application will be reviewed against eligibility criteria, following this, your application will be reviewed by the hiring manager. The application review for this vacancy will commence 1-2 weeks after the closing date.
Following application review, successful candidates will be invited to interview. Interview dates will commence 1-2 weeks after hiring manager review.