Application Support Analyst, Audit Technology Services

Contract type: Permanent

Location: London or Newcastle

Salary: c.£50,479 (London), c.£42,778 (Newcastle) a higher base may be considered for an exceptional candidate

Office attendance: The NAO operates a hybrid working policy where staff are expected to be in the office a minimum 2 days a week.

Main Purpose Of The Job

The National Audit Office (NAO) has made a strategic investment in audit technology and automation to enhance audit quality, efficiency, and value for money.

This role provides application support for business-critical audit systems, helping to keep services reliable, secure and effective for auditors. The postholder will support day-to-day operations, controlled system change and service improvement. The role helps ensure audit technology supports audit delivery while meeting NAO security, privacy and governance requirements.

As an Application Support Analyst, you will support specialist audit applications used by around 700 financial audit users. These are core business systems, not standard helpdesk tools, and the role is focused on maintaining reliable, secure services, supporting controlled change and improving how the applications are supported and used.

You will work with NAO colleagues and third-party suppliers to resolve issues, support releases and upgrades, maintain clear documentation and identify improvements from service data, user feedback and recurring incidents.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide high-quality application support for users, taking ownership of incidents and service requests through to resolution or escalation.
• Investigate application issues, identify recurring problems, support root-cause analysis and agree fixes or workarounds with technical teams or suppliers.
• Complete business-as-usual administration, including joiner, mover and leaver activity, access changes and periodic access reviews, ensuring least-privilege access and clear audit evidence.
• Monitor application availability, performance, capacity, data quality and service trends, using insight to identify risks and recommend improvements.
• Support incident, problem, change, release and knowledge management processes, including controlled configuration changes, maintenance and updates.
• Plan and complete functional, regression and user acceptance testing for releases, patches and infrastructure changes, including test scripts, evidence, defect management and post-release checks.
• Coordinate supplier support tickets, provide clear evidence, monitor service performance and escalate recurring issues or risks as needed.
• Create and maintain support procedures, knowledge articles, user guidance, training materials, service reporting and other documentation to support consistent team delivery.
• Support the development and delivery of user training or knowledge-sharing activities where this helps improve application use, reduce repeat queries and support effective adoption of changes.
• Support projects and the transition of new or changed services into business-as-usual operation, ensuring support, monitoring, documentation, access, resilience and supplier arrangements are ready.
• Participate in extended-hours support during peak periods and occasional out-of-hours work for upgrades, maintenance or priority issues.

Skills And Experience

Essential skills

• Experience supporting business-critical applications or digital services, including incident triage, service requests, escalation and resolution.
• Good understanding of application support and IT service management, including incident, problem, change, release, deployment and knowledge management.
• Ability to diagnose application issues, identify recurring problems and work with technical teams or suppliers to agree fixes or workarounds.
• Experience supporting releases, upgrades or patches, including testing, evidence recording and defect management.
• Experience creating or supporting user guidance, training materials or knowledge-sharing content to help users understand application changes and common support processes.
• Ability to use service data, ticket trends, user feedback and reporting tools to monitor performance, identify risks and support continuous improvement.
• Good data and analysis skills, including intermediate Excel skills and the ability to present information clearly for operational reporting and decision-making.
• Awareness of access management, information security and data protection, including least-privilege access and clear audit evidence.
• Familiarity with ITIL principles or equivalent service management practices

Desirable skills

• Understanding of Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse would be an advantage, particularly where these support configuration, application administration, data management, workflow automation, integration and service support.
• Familiarity with SharePoint, Azure DevOps and SQL.
• Awareness of Application Insights and experience of setting up or using performance monitoring would be an advantage, particularly to support service reliability, issue investigation and continuous improvement.
• Interest in emerging technologies, including automation and AI, and how these may potentially support audit technology services in the future.

Abilities

• Delivers high-quality customer service and a positive user experience.
• Communicates clearly and effectively with users and stakeholders.
• Able to work at pace, prioritise effectively, and manage multiple issues or tasks.
• Works confidently with third-party suppliers, escalating issues appropriately.
• Collaborates effectively with colleagues across different teams and seniority levels.
• Applies logical, solutions-focused thinking to resolve problems.

Out of Hours and Peak Period Working

During the peak financial audit period (May, June and July), the postholder will be required to participate in an extended hours support rota. Shifts may fall between 8:00am and 7:00pm Monday to Friday, and between 10:00am and 4:00pm on Saturdays and Sundays, allocated fairly across the team via a planned rota.

In addition, the postholder may occasionally be required to work out of hours to support system upgrades, planned maintenance or priority issues where service continuity is essential.

Where you are required to work extended or out of hours shifts, you will receive overtime payments in line with NAO policy.

To apply candidates should provide:

• An up-to-date CV
• A covering letter of no more than 2 pages clearly demonstrating how you meet the essential criteria and providing relevant examples from your experience

The closing date for applications is 23:59 on Monday 28th September

Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a high volume of applications is received.

Selection process

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend an initial Teams interview during WC 12th of October, followed by panel interview during WC 19th October or 26 October.

Nationality Requirements:

• UK nationals
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals from the EU, EEA or Switzerland with (or eligible for) status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

Please note, we are not able to sponsor work visas. Please contact us at hrservicedesk@nao.org.uk should you have any questions on your nationality eligibility.

Equal opportunities and diversity

Disability and Reasonable Adjustments: Applicants with a disability who wish their application to be considered under the Disability Confident scheme should confirm this when submitting their application. Under this scheme we guarantee an interview to an applicant with a disability who meets the minimum requirements for the role. You should also let our HR team know if you wish us to consider any Reasonable Adjustments at any stage of the process (HR Service Desk (HRServiceDesk@nao.org.uk).

We are committed to fair and open recruitment. All applications will be assessed on merit against the requirements of the role. We do not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic as defined by the Equality Act 2010.