Lead Service Designer

NHS; City Of London; On-site; GBP 76,000 - 89,000; Full time

Job summary

A national health service organization in London is seeking an experienced Lead Service Designer for a 12-month fixed-term position. The role involves leadership in user-centered service design, working collaboratively across teams to improve patient care and access. Applicants should have significant experience in service design and relevant qualifications. This position offers the opportunity to significantly impact the delivery of health services.

Qualifications

• Significant, senior practitioner level experience in service design.
• Experience in creating and implementing user-centred design vision.
• Knowledge of user-centred design and accessibility standards.

Responsibilities

• Lead service design initiatives for user-centered projects.
• Collaborate with product management to define service vision.
• Ensure products meet accessibility standards.

Skills

Service design leadership

User-centred design

Stakeholder negotiation

Team collaboration

Education

Master's level education

Recognised design qualification

Job description

Job summary

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Lead Service Designer to join us on a 12 month fixed term/Secondment for Maternity Cover, within the Identity and Access Management portfolio.

Our work has a direct impact on millions of patients' lives, helping them access essential services needed to support them to get appropriate care as quickly as possible. We have a direct impact on health professionals across the NHS providing them with essential tools and services to reduce the burden and enable them to spend more time treating people.

Identity and Access Management (IAM) provides secure, convenient and reliable access to patient data for over 1 million health and social care workers via the Care Identity Service.

As well as critical national authentication platforms, IAM is responsible for a number of supporting products and services designed to streamline health and social care workers' access to these authentication platforms and provide a range of solutions in support of identity verification, identity management and authentication.

You will be a key member of a multidisciplinary team, as well as becoming part of an active and supportive design community of practice, collaborating across the organisation, to ensure new and existing services are user‑centred, provide outstanding experiences and work for the whole population. You will have the opportunity to analyse and rethink the delivery of health and care services and improve delivery at national scale.

Main duties of the job

• User-centred service design leadership, collaborating with product management to define a vision for services, and share it in a way others can understand across multiple products in your portfolio.
• Collaborating with user researchers to ensure the needs of users, and organisational objectives are met.
• Using research evidence, design knowledge, and negotiation with senior stakeholders to improve health outcomes for the public or health professionals.
• Working with multi‑disciplinary teams so they understand the role and purpose of service design, user‑centred design, and how these help to meet the organisational goals.
• Ensuring our products and services are inclusive, accessible, and equitable.
• Leading, coaching, and line‑managing user‑centred design professionals in your portfolio area, including service designers, interaction designers, content designers and user researchers.

About us

Our work supports the NHS to deliver high quality services for patients and best value for taxpayers.

Our staff bring expertise across hundreds of specialisms – including clinical, operational, commissioning, technology, data science, cyber security, software engineering, education and commercial – enabling us to design and deliver high‑quality NHS services.

We lead the NHS in England by:

• Enabling local systems and providers to improve the health of their people and patients and reduce health inequalities.
• Making the NHS a great place to work, where our people can make a difference and achieve their potential.
• Working collaboratively to ensure our healthcare workforce has the right knowledge, skills, values and behaviours to deliver accessible, compassionate care.
• Optimising the use of digital technology, research, and innovation.
• Delivering value for money.

Earlier this year, the Government announced that NHS England will gradually merge with the Department of Health and Social Care, leading to full integration. The aim is to create a smaller, more strategic centre that reduces duplication and eliminates waste.

If successful at interview, we will initiate an Inter Authority Transfer (IAT) via the Electronic Staff Record (ESR). This retrieves key data from your current or previous NHS employer to support onboarding, including competency status, Continuous Service Dates (CSD), and annual leave entitlement. You may opt out at any stage of the recruitment process.

Details

Date posted: 06 November 2025

Pay scheme: Agenda for change

Band: Band 8c

Salary: £76,965 to £88,682 a year per annum (excluding London Weighting)

Contract: Fixed term

Duration: 13 months

Working pattern: Full‑time, Job share, Flexible working

Reference number: 990‑TD‑P&P‑18122‑E

Job locations: Wellington Place, Leeds / Wellington House, London; Leeds / London; LS1 4AP

Job responsibilities

You can find further details about the role, including key responsibilities and accountabilities, alongside the organisational structure and person specification in the attached Job Description and other supporting documents.

Secondments

Applicants from within the NHS will be offered on a secondment basis only; agreement should be obtained from their employer prior to submitting the application.

Person Specification

Qualifications (Essential)

• Educated to master’s level or equivalent years' experience.
• Recognised design qualification.

Skills and Experience (Essential)

• Significant, senior practitioner level experience in service design.
• Experience of creating and implementing a user‑centred design vision and strategy.
• Significant, senior practitioner‑level experience of making sense of complexity and working with diverse stakeholders to create alignment through the end‑to‑end service and understanding about the problem to solve from an end‑user perspective.
• Experience of leading, coaching, mentoring and line‑managing user‑centred design practitioners, including interaction designers, service designers, user researchers and content designers.

Knowledge (Essential)

• Knowledge and experience of ensuring products and services adhere to, and are designed according to, the relevant user‑centred design and accessibility standards e.g. GOV.UK or NHS Service Standard.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and, as such, it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.

Employer details

Employer name: NHS England

Address: Wellington Place, Leeds / Wellington House, London; Leeds / London; LS1 4AP

Employer's website: https://www.england.nhs.uk/about/working-for/