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Service owner

Find out what a service owner in government does and the skills you need to do the role at each level.

Last updated 28 February 2025 — See all updates

Contents

What a service owner does

A service owner is accountable for the quality of their service. In this role, you will adopt a portfolio view, managing end-to-end services that include multiple products and channels.

Service owner role levels

There is one service owner role level.

The typical responsibilities and skills for this role level are described below. You can use this to identify the skills you need to progress in your career, or simply to learn more about each role in the Government Digital and Data profession.

1. Service owner

A service owner is accountable for the quality of their service. They adopt a portfolio view, managing end-to-end services, which include multiple products and channels.

At this role level, you will:

  • operate at scale and provide the connection between multidisciplinary business areas and stakeholders
  • ensure the necessary business processes are followed
  • participate in the governance of the service, including acting as a point of escalation for the delivery teams
  • own the budget and allocate funding to areas of the service based on your decisions about priorities
  • communicate the benefits and performance of your service
  • be responsible for the successful operation and continuous improvement of the service

This role level is often performed at the Civil Service job grade of:

  • G7 (Grade 7)
  • G6 (Grade 6)
Skill Description

Agile working

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach for the team to take and evaluating this through the life of a project
  • think of new and innovative ways of working to achieve the right outcomes
  • act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team

Applying user-centred insights

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • advocate for a range of effective research approaches across the organisation
  • coach others in making decisions that meet user needs across a range of channels
  • advocate for continuous use of user insights in teams
  • use user insights to make strategic decisions to provide the best user experience

Financial ownership

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • develop an Agile business case and own and iterate it throughout the product life cycle
  • develop benefits with others within the portfolio
  • understand the granularity of financial costs per sprint and the value delivered

Government Digital and Data perspective

Level: practitioner

Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • demonstrate an advanced understanding of design, technology and data principles
  • identify and implement solutions for assisted digital
  • apply knowledge to work with other roles and groups in Government Digital and Data

Life cycle management

Level: practitioner

Practitioner is the third of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • work and consult with the right people at the right time to move through the life cycle and deliver value
  • use evidence to decide when a team should continue, change direction or stop
  • identify tools and techniques required at different phases of the life cycle
  • guide colleagues and stakeholders through different phases of the life cycle

Operational management

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • keep abreast of industry best practice and can cascade ways of working
  • make operations efficient
  • act as the escalation point for major operational issues and champion operational management across the community
  • work closely with leaders of operational delivery teams in Government Digital and Data

Problem management

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • anticipate problems and defend against them at the right time
  • understand how a problem fits into the larger picture
  • identify and describe problems, and help others to describe them
  • build problem-solving capabilities in others

Product ownership

Level: working

Working is the second of 4 ascending skill levels

you can:

  • demonstrate knowledge of the tools, terms and concepts used to deliver a product, and how they can be adapted and applied to different phases of delivery

Strategic ownership

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • support and coach others in creating and implementing a successful long-term strategy and tactical approach that others agree with
  • influence and persuade stakeholders to support delivery of the strategy
  • support with strategic decision making
  • ensure strategic alignment across the organisation
Role Shared skills
Product manager

Strategic ownership

Life cycle management

Applying user-centred insights
Analytics engineer

Problem management
Application operations engineer

Problem management
Business analyst

Agile working
Command and control centre manager

Problem management

Updates

Published 7 January 2020

Last updated 28 February 2025

28 February 2025

The skill 'life cycle perspective' has been renamed 'life cycle management'. This is to better reflect the requirements of the skill and for consistency across the framework.

The skill 'strategic ownership' has been updated. The level descriptions were edited to improve clarity and to better meet the definitions for each level.

Service owner now includes the skill 'applying user insights'.

The skill 'user focus' has been removed from the service owner role.

30 November 2024

The skill 'problem management' has been updated to improve clarity and ensure consistency across the framework, allowing it be shared with roles previously using the skill 'problem resolution (data). No change was made to the meaning of skill level descriptions.

1 December 2023

The 'DDaT perspective' skill was renamed 'Government Digital and Data perspective' across the framework. This follows the launch of the new Government Digital and Data brand that replaces DDaT.

30 August 2022

Service owner now includes the ‘DDaT perspective’ skill, at practitioner level.

7 January 2020

First published.