Lead Service Designer

Capgemini; Greater London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

Capgemini is looking for a Lead Service Designer to join our Experience Design team. In this role, you will lead complex service and product design engagements while mentoring your team and influencing clients. You will be responsible for managing project planning, leading cross-functional teams, and driving design innovations. Ideal candidates will have experience across various sectors and possess strong facilitation and communication skills to navigate multi-stakeholder environments effectively. This role is based in Greater London with opportunities to work on transformative client projects.

Qualifications

• Experience leading service design from strategy to live operation.
• Track record of influencing stakeholders in multi-stakeholder environments.
• Ability to design and run workshops and design sprints confidently.

Responsibilities

• Lead service and product design engagements end to end.
• Mentor service designers and support their career progression.
• Contribute to business development by scoping and client-relating activities.

Skills

Service design lifecycle management

Stakeholder influence

Design capability building

Facilitation skills

Fluency in service design methods

Comfort in agile environments

Job description

About the Job You’re Considering

At Capgemini, we partner with clients to build the future of their services, organisations, and customer experiences. As a Lead Service Designer in our Experience Design team, you will shape end‑to‑end, future‑state services that are human‑centred, data‑informed, and AI‑ready. You will work across complex ecosystems – spanning business, policy, people, and technology – transforming ambiguity into clarity and direction.

Your role

As a Lead, you'll either own the project lead role or act as lead practitioner, depending on the size and complexity of the engagement. You'll have input into, or ownership of, project planning and set‑up, ensuring you and the team can do your best work. You'll be hands‑on while also leading others, building strong relationships with senior client stakeholders, listening to their needs, and managing expectations with honesty. You will work with the Head of Experience Design and senior leadership to identify opportunities to extend current engagements or open new ones.

Delivery Leadership

• Lead complex service and product design engagements end to end and define service strategies and future state architectures
• Lead multidisciplinary teams to prototype, test, and launch new services and design and run research and insight programmes
• Facilitate design sprints, experiments, and co‑creation activities and create detailed service blueprints, journeys, and propositions that can scale
• Understand organisational, technical, and policy constraints and turn them into opportunity
• Guide clients through complex decisions and influence long‑term change

Capability and Practice Development

• Co‑lead the evolution of Experience Design methodology, tools, and quality standards across the practice
• Mentor and develop service designers across grades, supporting performance management and career progression
• Shape and contribute to the Experience Design Partnership model and its cross‑organisational delivery approach
• Support GDS Centre of Excellence activities including assessment preparation, training, and compliance
• Contribute to hiring, onboarding, and team development as the practice continues to grow, and support business development by contributing to proposals, scoping, and client‑shaping activities

Your Skills And Experience

Essential

• Experience leading service design through full lifecycle including piloting and live operation, not just strategy or discovery phases, and a track record of influencing senior stakeholders in complex, multi‑stakeholder, or regulated environments
• Evidence of building design capability – whether establishing standards, mentoring designers, standing up new practices, or shaping assessment frameworks – and strong facilitation skills to design and run workshops, design sprints, and co‑creation sessions with confidence
• Fluency in service design methods: blueprinting, journey mapping, systems mapping, proposition development, and experience managing and leading multidisciplinary teams, with strong feedback and performance development instincts
• Comfort operating in the gap between design and delivery, particularly in agile or hybrid environments, and the ability to manage upwards, initiate difficult conversations, and challenge constructively at all levels

Highly Desirable

• Experience working across multiple sectors – public sector, financial services, energy, healthcare, or commercial – with the ability to adapt to different governance and delivery contexts
• Experience with GDS Service Standard and assessment processes, or equivalent quality and compliance frameworks in regulated industries
• Understanding of accessibility requirements and regulatory constraints relevant to service design
• Experience with developer experience research, quantitative survey design, or operational service measurement
• Familiarity and commitment to developing the skills needed to design services that make use of AI – working with technology and architecture teams to bring AI‑enabled services, experiences, and ideas to life

Your Background

Our design team is an incredibly talented group of hybrids – and that’s something we embrace. The team includes people with backgrounds in design, complex digital transformation, organisational change and design, strategy, and business analysis. We know unicorns don’t exist, but we value practitioners who span multiple areas of service design with depth in at least one. Whether your background is in service design, product strategy, organisational design, UX, product, or CX transformation – what matters is your ability to lead, think systemically, and deliver.

We are a Disability Confident Employer

Capgemini is proud to be a Disability Confident Employer (Level 2) under the UK Government’s Disability Confident scheme.

As part of our commitment to inclusive recruitment, we will offer an interview to all candidates who:

• Declare they have a disability, and
• Meet the minimum essential criteria for the role.

Your security clearance

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

To be successfully appointed to this role you will need to undergo BPSS checks.

There are no nationality or residency restrictions, although if you have resided outside of the UK within the last 3 years, further checks may be required.

This role also requires you to be eligible for Security Clearance.