Head of Product Design

Job Description

Job Description

The Times Media Product team is organised around three core pillars of Subscription Growth, Reader Experience and Commercial. As Head of Product design, you will lead a talented and engaged group of product designers contributing across each of these pillars.

The goal is to deliver clean, engaging ways of attracting customers and telling stories. Our overarching aim is to deliver a beautiful product that serves our journalism in the best way possible, with new and innovative ways of reaching existing subscribers and attracting potential new readers.

We are looking for an experienced Head of Product Design to lead, mentor and inspire a multidisciplinary team of user research, UX and UI experts in creating intuitive, engaging, and high-performing digital experiences.

You will work collaboratively across the product team alongside product management, editorial leadership, engineering, marketing, and other key stakeholders. Oversee the execution of an emerging design system, foster innovation, and ensure our digital products meet the highest standards of usability and aesthetics.

In this role, you will collaborate within a guild of senior designers across brand, editorial, marketing, and product to ensure consistent execution of our core design principles across all formats and platforms.

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing digital product design team.

• Implement our user-centered design strategy that adheres to core design principles and business goals.

• Oversee the end-to-end design process, from research and ideation to prototyping and implementation.

• Champion design thinking and innovative best practices by participating in the border design guild across the organisation.

• Advocate for accessibility, inclusivity, and usability in all design decisions.

• Use customer interviews, research tools, testing and data analysis to help understand the customers and validate design decisions.

• Continuous discovery - be outcome-oriented with the goal of weekly touchpoints with customers, creating a feedback loop with users, testing in small increments and frequently.

• Manage design budgets, resources, and vendor relationships as needed.

• Proven experience leading a digital product design team in a fast-paced environment, with a track record of developing top design talent. Ideally within media or similar audience centric, digital-first industries.

• Strong portfolio showcasing expertise in UX/UI design, interaction design, and visual design.

• Understanding of user-centred design principles. A track record of making impactful change through smart, data-driven UX implementation.

• Deep understanding of user research methodologies, usability testing, and analytics.

• Experience and knowledge of industry-standard product design software, such as Figma, as well as research tools such as Userzoom etc.

• Ability to balance business objectives with audience needs to create impactful design solutions.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, confident leading workshops and presenting, with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels.

• Understanding of front-end development principles and experience working closely with engineering teams.

• Experience with AI first & AI augmented product design processes and methodologies

• Passion for innovation, problem-solving, and continuous learning.

• Familiarity with Agile and Lean UX methodologies.

• Ideally editorial/publishing or subscriber-based product experience, but not essential.

News UK is one of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include…