Senior Service Designer – Contract (Inside IR35)
£600–£700 per day | 1 day per week on-site | London, Glasgow or Cardiff | Until October 2026
Are you a seasoned Senior Service Designer who loves solving complex problems, shaping end‑to‑end services, and raising the bar for user‑centred design?
This long‑term contract offers the chance to lead service design practice across multiple high‑impact digital services, working with multidisciplinary teams and influencing design at scale.
This is an opportunity to work as an expert practitioner, guiding product teams, improving ways of working, and mentoring designers, while embedding best‑in‑class service design across an organisation that delivers major national programmes.
What you will be doing
Leading service design across multiple complex initiatives, ensuring high‑quality design delivery.
Working closely with Product Managers, Service Owners and UCD specialists to shape clear, inclusive, user‑focused service journeys.
Setting direction, assuring design standards, and helping define consistent UCD practices and frameworks.
Designing systems and services that work end‑to‑end across multiple touchpoints and user groups.
Mentoring and coaching designers, supporting capability‑building, and championing service design across teams.
Creating, maintaining and advocating for service design artefacts, templates and best practice approaches.
Essential skills & experience
Core expertise
Extensive professional experience in service design (lead criteria).
Strong experience collaborating with Interaction Designers, Content Designers and User Researchers (lead criteria).
Proven ability to design systems used across multiple services, choosing the simplest and most effective approaches.
Decision-making & delivery
Ability to make and justify decisions in high‑risk, high‑impact, complex environments.
Ability to balance, prioritise and mitigate design constraints across teams and services.
Nice-to-have
Experience working in the public sector.
Familiarity with the GDS Service Standard and service assessments.