Service Designer

Satellite Applications Catapult; East Hagbourne; Hybrid; GBP 52,000 - 72,000; Full time

Job summary

Satellite Applications Catapult is hiring a Senior Service Designer to join the User Centered Design Team on a 5-month fixed-term contract. You will lead complex, early-stage work to define the real problem before any solution.

Reporting to the Head of UCD, you will guide a 7-person design team across agriculture, health, transport and energy, shaping how we work and delivering credible design strategies for government, industry and international partners.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in service design or equivalent strategic design discipline.
• Ability to lead ambiguous discovery independently, without a well-defined brief.
• Strong problem-framing skills to make complex situations understandable.
• Experience facilitating cross-disciplinary workshops and senior stakeholder sessions.
• Track record of artefacts (blueprints, maps, concepts) shaping decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end discovery phases for multi-stakeholder programmes.
• Define research strategies and determine what needs to be known before decisions.
• Frame ambiguous problems into insights and concepts.
• Connect policy goals, commercial realities, technical constraints and user needs into recommendations.
• Lead workshops and cross-disciplinary sessions with senior participants.

Skills

Discovery leadership

Design strategy

Facilitation

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Job description

Please note, we may look to interview before the advert close date due to the urgency of the role. The advert will close if a suitable candidate is found before the deadline. The role is a 5 month fixed-term contract and due to this requirement, we are not able to offer sponsorship at this time. Candidates must have existing right to work in the UK for the full duration of the contract.

We are hiring a Senior Service Designer to join our User Centered Design Team (UCD) on a 5 month fixed-term contract. You will lead complex, early-stage work where the real challenge is determining the right problem before any solution is on the table.

At the Satellite Applications Catapult, we bridge the gap between space technology and practical applications. Working with government, industry, and international partners we work collaboratively to identify how satellite-derived data and capabilities can create real-world value. You will bring design leadership to that work, helping clients and partners understand what's possible, what's needed, and how to move from ambiguity to action.

You will work as part of a team of 7 designers reporting into the Head of UCD. As a small team we punch above our weight working on a wide range of projects in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, transport, and energy, supporting small and large companies alike. Every day is different and might involve scoping a new project with external stakeholders, producing mock-ups to use in a user interview, or working with a small business to collaboratively map out user journeys.

This is a senior individual contributor role with meaningful leadership responsibilities. You will represent the design practice to senior stakeholders and help shape how we work as a UCD team, not just what we deliver.

Lead Discovery in Complex, Ambiguous Contexts

• Own and lead end-to-end discovery phases for multi-stakeholder programmes
• Define research strategies and determine what needs to be known before decisions are made
• Work effectively in domains where expertise is distributed across teams and problems are not yet well-formed

Shape Strategy Through Design

• Reframe ambiguous problems into insights and concepts
• Connect policy goals, commercial realities, technical constraints, and user needs into coherent recommendations
• Support businesses and start-ups with design strategy helping to shape their operating models, service propositions, and commercial roadmaps
• Use systems thinking approaches to identify root causes, anticipate downstream impacts, risks, and dependencies.
• Contribute meaningfully to bids, proposals, and early-stage opportunity shaping

Facilitate & Convene

• Comfortably design and lead workshops, co-design sessions, and expert panels that move groups from discussion to decision
• Work across disciplines; engineers, scientists, policy professionals, procurement leads creating shared understanding without being the subject matter expert
• Build credibility quickly with senior stakeholders across government, public sector, and industry
• Be an active connector of people, ideas and opportunities

Make Ideas Tangible

• Produce blueprints, system maps, prototypes, and service concepts choosing the right tool and fidelity for the purpose; from a quick sketch to a structured service blueprint, without over-engineering it
• Use tangible artefacts to unlock high-stakes decisions and bring creativity into delivery by exploring options quickly, testing assumptions early, and surfacing trade-offs

Lead & Develop People

• Champion user-centred design practice across the Catapult, raising design maturity not just within the UCD team
• Contribute to templates, ways of working, and team standards that others build on
• Represent the UCD team in senior internal and external forums

Significant experience

• Significant experience in service design, design research, or an equivalent strategic design discipline
• Demonstrated ability to lead ambiguous discovery independently, without needing a well-defined brief
• Strong problem-framing skills. You can make a complex situation understandable and structure a path forward
• Experience facilitating cross-disciplinary workshops and stakeholder sessions with senior participants
• Track record of producing artefacts (blueprints, system maps, concepts) that have meaningfully shaped decisions
• Commercially aware; you understand time, budget, and delivery constraints and can design within them
• Comfortable building external relationships and representing the Catapult with credibility

Highly desirable

• Experience in technical or regulated sectors: data, infrastructure, engineering, defence, environment, agriculture etc.
• Familiarity with public sector and government commissioning, including Innovate UK, UKRI, ESA, or similar funding environments
• Experience working to support businesses develop and validate their commercial propositions

We strive to create a high trust, high performance and inclusive environment that enables team members to bring their whole selves to work. This helps to create the foundations of an innovation culture. Our shared values are critical to this:

Our shared values

• We care - for our people, our partners, and our planet
• We connect - and engage with people and ideas
• We learn - and grow, as people and as an industry

Underpinning this is our belief in great teams. Our combined efforts will always deliver outcomes beyond that of any individual, providing we are honest through debate, experiment and reflect, and create shared resolutions in support of our purpose. Live these values, work to our principles, take ownership to deliver, and we are certain you will thrive with us.

This job description set outs the skills and experience we think are needed to be able to perform in this job. If you believe you can deliver in this role then we want to hear from you.

We offer a hybrid policy which is designed around collaboration, one 'anchor' day per week working with your direct team and another flexible day per week to be spent collaborating or working with other colleagues.

Important notice for applicants: We use tools to detect plagiarism and the use of AI or chatbots for applicant answers. If plagiarism, AI use (such as ChatGPT) or similar software are found to have been used in your application you will not be considered for this or future roles within the Satellite Applications Catapult.

At Satellite Applications Catapult, we're committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workforce. We welcome candidates from all corners of the globe, but due to legal and logistical considerations, we want to be transparent about the potential visa-related challenges that could arise. Our ability to offer sponsorship will depend on the level of interest for our roles and salary level.