Service Design Manager
Salary: £39,888 - £60,260
Contract: Permanent
Location: London – Hybrid
Annual Leave: 30 Days + Excellent Benefits
Closing date: 4th August 2025
Be Part of the Future of Rail
The railway in Britain is undergoing its most significant transformation in a generation, and Rail Delivery Group (RDG) is at the heart of it. With the creation of Great British Railways (GBR), we’re helping shape a new era of smarter, simpler, and more connected ticketing.
RDG’s Digital Ticketing Services (DTS) team leads innovation in smart ticketing, enabling fully interoperable digital solutions across the country. Our work helps Train Operating Companies (TOCs) deliver seamless journeys for millions of customers – now and into the future.
What is the purpose of this job?
As a Service Design Manager, you'll be responsible for creating and developing the end-to-end service design process, from research and ideation to prototyping and implementation. You'll collaborate with teams across the organization, including product, engineering, and customer experience, to ensure that the services you design are truly meeting the needs of your customers. This may involve conducting user research, journey mapping, and testing to identify areas for improvement, as well as using data-driven insights to inform your design decisions.
Understand the discipline of Service Design and how to integrate the practice into agile service delivery, from discovery to live. Understand user research methods and put them into practice. Create a detailed user journey and set of user needs for your service. Prototype and scale your ideas into a real, working service.
In addition to your hands-on design work, you will be responsible for setting the strategic direction for service design, and ensuring that it delivers high-quality service experiences.
What can I expect to do in this job?
This is not an exhaustive list; however, things you can expect to be involved with include:
* Service Design
Develop and design service management and delivery solutions to support new and change services.
* Service Catalogue Management
Ensures the service catalogue is maintained and accurate, reflecting any service amendments.
* Collaboration
Works closely with the technical architects / DTS SME’s and account specific's, during the service design phase.
* Requirements Gathering
Gathers and documents customer requirements, understands their needs and constraints.
* Risk Management
Identifying documents, documents, potential risks and the mitigations.
* Operational Support
Develops the operational support model for the design services
* Acceptance Criteria
Provides recommendations to feed into the Operational Acceptance Criteria.
* Documentation
Creates clear and concise technical/ service documentation.
* Customer focus
Understands the customers need and prioritise their needs in the design process.
* Problem Solving
Identifying and solves complex problems related to service design.
* Governance
Create and manage a service design board.
Requirements
What We’re Looking For
We are looking for a Service Design Manager who will be responsible for the entire service design lifecycle, from initial research and ideation to prototyping and implementation. We are seeking a candidate that will thrive in an independent setting and is equipped with the creative and analytical skill to fulfil the role. You'll work with various teams across the organisation to ensure that the services you design meet needs of our users – so collaboration and good communication is key!
The successful candidate should be comfortable taking a proactive approach to working, excellent communication skills and a commitment to help shape the ever-changing journey of the service we provide in the Rail industry.
Essential Skills & Experience:
* A-level or higher, or equivalent professional experience and qualifications
* ITIL Foundation certified
* Understand and support ITIL best practise and processes
* Experience of working within ISO quality standard such as 20001 and 27001
* Excellent problem solving and analytical skills
* Strong understanding of service design principles, methods, and tools
* Be competent in document management and the use of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint
* Must have prior reporting skills and Microsoft Excel experience
* Must have exceptional customer service experience and drive.
* Must have experience in dealing with internal and external customers and vendors and be comfortable building and maintaining relationships at all levels.
* Effective organisational skills with the ability to easily identify and resolve problems efficiently and handle multiple tasks
* Enthusiastic and able to work in a pro-active and independent manner
* Excellent communicator, written and verbally. with an ability to build good working relationships
* Experience in communicating technical requirements or technical issues to non-technical audiences
* Have a keen eye for detail
Benefits
Why Work for RDG?
We offer a highly competitive package, including:
* 75% off rail travel for personal and family use, plus international rail discounts.
* 30 days annual leave (plus buy/sell options and additional leave for key life events)
* Season ticket loan for commuting costs.
* Enhanced family leave – 30 weeks full pay for maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and shared parental leave.
* Pension scheme – up to 11.58% employer contribution.
* Private medical insurance (AXA PPP) including mental health and specialist care.
* Discounted gym membership and access to wellbeing programmes.
Career Development & Progression
You’ll be one of the key faces of a nationally significant programme and a recognised leader in the future of Pay As You Go ticketing. As part of our wider team of Programme and Project Managers, you’ll have the chance to shape the future of ticketing and progress into strategic or director-level programme leadership roles at RDG.
Apply Now & Shape the Future of UK Rail
If you’re ready to lead one of the UK’s most exciting digital ticketing programmes and want to work in a collaborative, forward-thinking environment, we’d love to hear from you.
Click Apply now to start your application and be part of a team that is leading digital innovation in the rail industry.
Please note that we are unable to consider applications from candidates who require visa sponsorship to work in the UK.