After a long period of sustained growth and investment in our technology platforms and services, Osborne Clarke is looking to further strengthen our IT function with the creation of an IT Knowledge Specialist role, to be based in our Bristol or London office.
This specialist role will be pivotal in designing, owning and maturing our IT knowledge management practice – ensuring accurate, current and accessible knowledge is captured, maintained and reused across our IT service lifecycle, and that our people can resolve issues quickly through great self-service and first-line support.
This is a permanent position offering hybrid working (35 hours per week, with flexibility to meet deadlines as required).
The role
The IT Knowledge Specialist will sit within our IT Excellence team and work closely with colleagues across Service Delivery, Service Desk, Engineering, Applications, Security and Change & Transformation. You will define the firm’s IT Services knowledge strategy and standards, govern how knowledge is created and maintained, and continually improve the way our internal users and IT teams find and use information.
Other key responsibilities include:
Knowledge Strategy, Standards & Governance
- Define and maintain the IT Services Knowledge Management strategy, policy and roadmap, aligned to ITIL practices and Osborne Clarke’s objectives.
- Establish and govern clear roles, responsibilities and approval workflows for knowledge creation, review and publication.
- Set and maintain standards for knowledge content (including templates, style guide, tagging/taxonomy, accessibility and inclusive language).
- Define review cadences and retirement criteria for knowledge content, ensuring our knowledge base remains accurate, relevant and easy to use.
Knowledge Lifecycle Management
- Manage the full lifecycle of IT Services knowledge content: capture, curate, review, publish, promote, archive and retire material.
- Author and maintain high-quality end-user and technical documentation (e.g. knowledge articles, SOPs, how‑to guides, FAQs and release notes) using agreed templates and taxonomies.
- Ensure all content is appropriately classified, access-controlled, versioned and subject to scheduled reviews.
- Drive a “knowledge‑first” culture across Incident and Request processes, promoting case–article linking and reuse to improve first-contact resolution and speed of fulfilment.
- Collaborate with Problem Management to publish known errors and workarounds and to feed root cause insights into knowledge improvements.
- Work closely with Change and Release teams to ensure knowledge readiness is achieved before go‑live for new or changed services.
Tools, Portal Experience & Continuous Improvement
- Configure and continuously improve knowledge and search capabilities within the ITSM tool (e.g. search tuning, relevance, synonyms, taxonomy and, where appropriate, federated search).
- Design and optimise the self-service knowledge experience on the IT portal to support “shift-left” and reduce demand on traditional support channels.
- Define and track metrics on knowledge health, usage and outcomes; produce regular reports and dashboards and use data insights to drive continual improvement.
- Collaborate with the Knowledge Systems team, vendors and internal tooling teams to enhance knowledge functionality and user experience.
Risk, Compliance & Operational Documentation
- Ensure all knowledge content complies with Information Security and data protection requirements, including appropriate classification and access controls.
- Oversee the maintenance of IT-related business continuity and disaster recovery documentation, including quarterly audits with all business units.
- Work with stakeholders to ensure Business Impact Assessments and related documentation remain current and accurate.
- Liaise with function owners to support the maintenance of architecture artefacts, asset records and security documentation related to IT Services.
Collaboration, Coaching & Change Enablement
- Work closely with Service Desk, IT Support staff, Service Owners and subject matter experts to capture and improve knowledge based on demand and business value.
- Maintain a prioritised backlog of knowledge gaps and deliver measurable improvements to the knowledge base.
- Support communications and change enablement activities to embed knowledge‑centric behaviours across IT teams and the wider business.
We are looking for
- Proven experience in Knowledge Management or a closely related ITSM/ITIL-aligned role, ideally within a complex or professional services environment.
- Practical experience with Knowledge-Centred Service (KCS) or equivalent knowledge methodologies.
- Strong understanding of ITIL, particularly Knowledge Management, and how it integrates with Incident, Problem, Change and Request practices.
- Excellent technical writing and editing skills, with the ability to produce clear, concise and user-friendly documentation for both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong information architecture skills, including taxonomy, metadata and indexing, with experience of search tuning and portal user experience.
- Proficiency with ITSM and knowledge platforms, including configuration of knowledge and search capabilities.
- Good data literacy: able to define and track relevant metrics, build dashboards and use data to drive decision-making and continual improvement.
- Awareness of Information Security and data protection best practices as they relate to IT knowledge content.
- Organised and methodical, with excellent record-keeping, governance discipline and attention to detail.
- Strong communication, facilitation and coaching skills, with the ability to influence, upskill and embed good knowledge practices across teams.
- Understanding of Knowledge Management or ISO 30401-related credentials.
Salary and benefits
We offer competitive salaries and generous benefits. We value the health and wellbeing of our people and our wide range of initiatives and benefits support this.
Our recruitment process
Please note that although we include closing dates for our roles as a guide, we review and progress applications on a rolling basis. At Osborne Clarke we do not make any recruitment decisions using automated decision-making.
We are committed to providing an environment where you can perform to the best of your abilities at every stage of your recruitment experience and beyond. If you require any adjustments to be made during the application stage, interview process, or when working with us, please let us know in confidence.