Design Principal

About The Role

As a Design Principal you will be leading multi-disciplinary teams including design, tech and data capabilities, to deliver strategically critical digital transformation initiatives. This involves working closely with directors, heads of practice and portfolio leads - using user-centred design to reimagine how they deliver value, and coaching clients and their teams to take bold steps around digital transformation in an AI-era.

You’ll provide accountability for challenging and complex projects and programmes that might span a Government department, dive deep in a local council function, or influence a national charity. Using your deep knowledge and expertise to constantly balance quality of delivery, commercial constraints, and client and team needs.

Ultimately enabling the organisations that we partner with to work more effectively and efficiently achieve outcomes for their users, communities and the planet.

• Delivery - lead teams, work and outcomes in complex projects, owning commercial responsibilities and impact measures, with a focus on delivering value to clients within time and budget constraints. This includes hands-on work and leading by example where needed, drawing from your own specialist design skills and knowledge.
• Leading productive project teams - strategically plan projects with oversight of how we apply methods and approaches, providing clear expectations for how others in your project teams deliver work, and ensuring teams and projects are inclusive.
• Strategic insight - put users at the heart of business strategy, providing creative and technical direction, and ensuring work is bold and ambitious, while knowing when to seek support or inspiration from others.
• Communication and storytelling - articulate the desired future for clients in compelling and creative ways through stories, visuals and other media. Connecting present change with longer term impact, whether that is improving user journeys, achieving policy goals or adopting new ways of working.
• Growth - develop trusted relationships with our clients, proactively look for and shape the next opportunity to add value and win work. Demonstrably share our work with wider audiences to showcase our skills and impact, like sector events and regular blog posts.
• Practice development - develop your skills and deepen the knowledge of others by bringing innovative practices and trends into our work. This includes owning parts of our service offer development, working closely with other Heads of Practice, the Growth team and the Chief Design Officer.
• Skills development - continuously maintain and update your skills and knowledge to stay current within your relevant field of expertise.

About You

Professional knowledge and experience

Essential

• Previous experience leading high performing, client facing teams, projects, or programmes of work.
• Strong leadership skills, with an ability to draw on coaching skills and experience of how to use user centred approaches and a range of strategic design methodology.
• Strong business development experience, including developing and growing existing programmes of work, as well as new opportunities to best meet the needs of clients.

Technical skills

Essential

• Project direction - ability to manage ambiguity, lead strategic approaches to vision setting, problem framing, plan work and deliver outcomes.
• Commercial - demonstrable experience of planning and managing budgets, including achieving margins, and revenue as part of successful programme, project delivery, and/or account growth strategies. This can include responsibilities to work with or be accountable to Senior Partners.
• Navigating trade-offs - experience in responding to change and balancing team health, quality of delivery and outcomes, client relationships and commercial viability over time.
• Team leadership - experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams, co-ordinating work with other specialists.
• Client relationships - experience in challenging and coaching senior clients and stakeholders to be bold and ambitious, including those with low digital or user-centred design maturity.
• Change management and communication - ability to visualise, or work with others to communicate alternative futures and the value of change efforts in compelling ways.
• Business growth - experience of finding and shaping new opportunities for work.
• Ethics and values - ability to champion and uphold principles and standards around accessibility and inclusivity and ethical use of…