Senior Service Designer

UCL AI Centre; London; Hybrid; GBP 67,000 - 76,000; Full time

Job summary

Join UCL AI Centre as a Senior Service Designer to shape and deliver services that enhance student and staff experiences. This high-impact role focuses on user-centered design, requiring expertise in navigating complex systems. Collaborate across teams to drive transformation in a supportive and inclusive environment.

Benefits

41 Days holiday

Additional annual leave purchase scheme

Defined benefit career average pension scheme

Cycle to work scheme

On-site nursery

On-site gym

Enhanced maternity, paternity, and adoption pay

Qualifications

• Experience in shaping and delivering user-centred services in complex environments.
• Ability to turn complexity into clarity and navigate large organisations.
• Track record of conducting user research and designing services across digital and physical boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design of end-to-end services that are seamless, inclusive, and user-centred.
• Conduct deep user research to uncover insights and drive meaningful change.
• Champion service design in strategic change initiatives.

Skills

Service design

User research

Co-creation

Stakeholder engagement

Journey mapping

Prototyping

Job description

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Ref Number B01-04943 Professional Expertise Administration and Business Support Department Vice-President (Operations) (B01) Location London Working Pattern Full time Salary £67,341-£75,192 Contract Type Permanent Working Type Hybrid Available for Secondment No Closing Date 06-Jul-2025

About Us

UCL is one of the world’s leading universities, recognised for academic excellence, global impact, and a strong commitment to tackling real-world challenges. We are a diverse community where bold ideas are not only welcomed but expected- where thinking differently is part of our culture.

Now is an exciting time to join us as we build a new service design capability and lead transformation that is reshaping how students and staff experience UCL. User-centred design enables us to simplify complexity, create great experiences, and deliver meaningful, measurable value across the university.

About The Role

As a Senior Service Designer, you will play a pivotal role in shaping how UCL delivers its most critical services to students and staff. Sitting within the Strategic Change team, you’ll lead the design of services that are intuitive, inclusive, and aligned with UCL’s strategic priorities-transforming how people experience the university every day.

This is a high-impact role at the heart of UCL’s transformation agenda. You’ll collaborate across complex systems and structures to design services that connect people, processes, and technology, whether that’s improving student enrolment, streamlining staff onboarding, or enhancing access to core university functions.

You’ll help us to grow UCL’s internal service design capability- coaching colleagues, sharing best practice, and utilising tools and methods that embed user centred design at every stage of transformation. Championing the voice of the user, you will support us to build a culture of design-led improvement that will shape UCL’s future.

You Will

• Lead the design of end-to-end services that are seamless, inclusive, and user-centred.
• Conduct deep user research to uncover insights and drive meaningful change.
• Collaborate with users, academic and professional teams to co-create impactful services.
• Ensure alignment across operating models, organisational structures, and processes.
• Champion service design in strategic change initiatives, from discovery through to delivery.
• Define success metrics and demonstrate the tangible value of your work.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, influencing decisions at the highest levels.
  
  

About You

You are a confident and curious designer with a strong track record of shaping and delivering user-centred services in complex, multi-stakeholder environments. You bring deep expertise in service design, from research and journey mapping to prototyping and testing, and you thrive on turning complexity into clarity. You also understand how operating models can shape service delivery and ensure they support seamless, scalable, and sustainable experiences.

You’re skilled at navigating large organisations and understand how to design services that work across digital, physical, and organisational boundaries. You know how to engage diverse voices and translate their needs into great services.

You lead with empathy and evidence, facilitating collaborative design and supporting delivery teams to bring ideas to life. You’re as comfortable in a workshop as you are advising senior leaders, and you know how to build trust, influence decisions, and embed sustainable design practices that leave a lasting legacy.

In return, you’ll have the opportunity to make a significant impact in our new Service Design team, working alongside visionary leaders and talented colleagues. We offer a collaborative environment where your ideas are valued, your growth is supported, and your work directly contributes to the university’s bold strategic goals. Our people really are our greatest asset and we invest in them so that they can fulfil their potential. Equity, diversity and inclusion is important to us. We are committed to creating an environment where everyone is encouraged to give their best in a place where their unique experiences, perspectives and skills are seen as valuable assets.

Please ensure that you attach a portfolio with your application and use the cover letter to demonstrate how you meet the person specification and the desired criteria for this role.

We encourage you to submit your application as soon as possible, as we may close applications early if we receive a high volume of interest.

We regret to inform you that we cannot currently sponsor or support visa applications for this role. Applicants must possess the legal right to work in the UK.

What we offer

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:

• 41 Days holiday (27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
• Additional 5 days’ annual leave purchase scheme
• Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
• Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
• Immigration loan
• Relocation scheme for certain posts
• On-Site nursery
• On-site gym
• Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
• Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
• Discounted medical insurance
  
  

As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents, we also offer great benefits.

Please visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/rewards-and-benefits to find out more.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.

We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce.

These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.Our department is working towards an Athena SWAN award. We are committed to advancing gender equalitywithin our department.

You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/

Work at UCL pages: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/

Available documents

Attached documents are available under links. Clicking a document link will initialize its download.

• download: Candidate Information Pack - Strategic Change.docx
• download: Senior Service Designer JD.docx

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Design, Art/Creative, and Information Technology

• Industries

  Higher Education

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