Service Design Lead

The Brand

This opportunity is with a major UK retailer whose digital experience is expanding beyond today's website and app into genuine omnichannel — bringing digital, physical stores, and colleague-supported interactions together as one connected system. It's a business that's investing seriously in building this capability properly, rather than treating it as a side project within an existing team, offering the chance to shape how the organisation designs customer experience at a genuinely foundational level.

The Role

This is a Service Design Lead role, and the defining feature of it is that the function doesn't exist yet — this person is establishing and leading service design from scratch, not joining an existing team. That means defining the vision, strategy, operating model, and phased roadmap for the function itself; creating the standards, governance, and templates teams will use; and leading complex, end-to-end service design initiatives across digital, physical, and colleague-supported channels.

It also means building a shared repository of journey maps and service blueprints, embedding accessibility and inclusive design from the start, exploring responsible use of AI in service design, and influencing senior leaders and investment decisions by translating evidence into clear, actionable recommendations.

The Person

The ideal candidate has 6+ years of experience in Service Design, Customer Experience, UX, or Design Strategy, including leading work in a complex organisation — and critically, they'll have proven experience actually establishing, scaling, or maturing a service design practice or function, not just practising service design within one that already exists. They'll bring advanced journey mapping, service blueprinting, facilitation, and systems-thinking capability, alongside excellent leadership and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to gain senior sponsorship and navigate genuine ambiguity.

A strong commercial and outcome focus matters here too — this person needs to define what success looks like for the function itself and prove its value, not just deliver good design work. Experience in retail, omnichannel services, accessibility, international markets, or AI-enabled service design would all be advantageous, though not essential.