Owns the incident management process: triage, escalation, SLA and post-incident review.
Entry
Intermediate
Coding
Low
Key skills
Career overview
The Incident Manager owns the incident management process end to end: triage standards, escalation paths, SLA compliance, communication during incidents and post-incident reviews. They make sure incidents are handled consistently and that the organisation learns from them. The role leads to major incident manager, IT service manager or service delivery manager.
Main responsibilities
- Manage the incident management process
- Lead incident resolution and post-mortem analysis
- Respect SLA response and resolution targets
- Escalate complex cases to the relevant technical team
- Keep technical documentation up to date
- Write and maintain knowledge base articles
- Write and improve operational runbooks
- Align stakeholders and report progress
- Monitor platform health, alerts and dashboards
- Prioritise work and manage competing demands
- Prepare and execute change requests in production
- Produce operations reporting and KPIs
Technical skills
Technologies
Education level
Education requirements vary depending on the company, country and experience. Professional experience, certifications and technical skills can sometimes compensate for formal education.
High School / Bac
Less common
Bac+2 (2-year degree)
Less common
Bac+3 (Bachelor)
Common entry point
Bac+5 (Master / Engineering)
Common entry point
Experience & coding level
Experience level
Coding level
Useful certifications
Certifications are never mandatory. They are one way among others to prove a skill.
- ITIL 4 Specialist (CDS)
- ITIL 4 Foundation
- KCS Foundation
Where can this career take you?
Multiple paths are possible. Click a role to open its profile.
Direct progression
Possible branches
Where can you go next?
Realistic next career moves, with compatibility and a transition roadmap for each.
Overlap: 38% · Difficulty: Easy
Skills to learn: Service lifecycle, Service catalogue, Continuous improvement
View roadmapOverlap: 39% · Difficulty: Easy
Skills to learn: Provider governance, Customer relationship, Continuous improvement
View roadmapOverlap: 61% · Difficulty: Easy
Skills to learn: Trend analysis, Reporting & KPIs, Continuous improvement
View roadmapWhere can you go from here?
A typical progression built from real career relationships. Click any role to open its profile.
Soft skills
- Staying calm under pressure
- Decisiveness
- Clear communication
- Prioritisation
- Organisation
- Rigour and attention to detail
- Stakeholder management
Common previous careers
Roles that frequently lead into this career.
Overlap: 51% · Difficulty: Hard
Skills to learn: SLA management, Escalation handling, Ticketing & ITSM tools
View roadmapRelated resources
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A documented transition from this role to the next.
Incident ManagerMajor Incident Manager
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