Principal Service Designer

About the role:

As a Principal Service Designer at NEC Digital Studio, you will hold multiple responsibilities around projects, the Research and Service Design team, and support the culture and operations of the business. You’ll report to the Head of Service Design.

This is one of several Principal roles across the NEC Digital Studio’s design and research teams and the post holder will be expected to consider how their role and areas of focus complement the work of the other principals to best support NEC. In practice this may mean that you focus more on some of the areas below than others.

We’re looking for an experienced Service Designer with a strong track record of delivering complex service design projects. You’ll create end-to-end, evidence-based services that are inclusive, accessible and sustainable, working within multidisciplinary teams where autonomy, leadership and project management are essential. You’ll also champion user-centred design (UCD), helping clients understand and adopt UCD approaches, including organisations that may be new to user-centred ways of working.

As a Principal Service Designer, you’ll contribute across three key areas:

• Practice: Lead complex service design projects across multiple sectors; shape Service Design practice, quality standards and ways of working; champion accessible, inclusive and sustainable design; support colleagues to embed these principles into their work; and advocate for Service Design across NEC Digital Studio and the wider organisation.
• Leadership: Direct complex, high-value projects and strategic client partnerships; drive effective collaboration across disciplines; mentor, line manage and recruit colleagues; identify development needs; foster a supportive, high-performing culture; and build strong relationships across leadership, operations, delivery, HR and practice teams. You’ll also work alongside the NEC Digital Studio Design School to develop and deliver training, promote capability growth, and represent NEC Digital Studio through internal and external communications, conferences and events.
• Commercial: Support business growth by identifying and shaping opportunities, scoping and costing projects, managing risk, producing proposals and statements of work, and contributing to pitches. You’ll build strong relationships with clients, stakeholders and funders, helping to secure repeat business, strengthen our reputation, and ensure projects deliver outstanding outcomes for clients and rewarding development opportunities for colleagues.

Ways of Working

• Awareness: Model empathy, inclusion, fairness and wellbeing, while empowering teams and considering client, market and organisational needs when making recommendations.
• Collaboration: Communicate openly, champion transparency, coach collaborative ways of working, and enable teams to deliver complex services and products.
• Growth: Support business development, identify opportunities with existing and prospective clients, coach colleagues, and share expertise through training, talks and thought leadership.
• Strategy: Lead strategic thinking and implementation, navigate constraints and risks, facilitate decision-making, and build influential stakeholder networks.
• Values: Champion user-centred, ethical, inclusive, accessible and sustainable design, helping others apply these principles successfully in their work.

• User-centred design: Coach teams and stakeholders to design user-centred services and experiences aligned to client strategy and wider constraints.
• Public Sector: Significant demonstable experience working on GDS Projects.
• Research: Work with User Researchers to plan and deliver effective research, generating high-quality insights that support project outcomes.
• Strategy & systems thinking: Guide teams through complex challenges, facilitate strategic discussions, build consensus, and identify opportunities that meet client objectives.
• Facilitation: Design and lead workshops, stakeholder sessions, and high-value or complex meetings to achieve project goals.
• Visual communication: Provide creative direction to ensure visual outputs are professional, accessible, impactful, and audience-appropriate.
• Written communication: Support teams to produce high-quality deliverables that are clear, effective, and tailored to their audience.
• Recommendations & implementation: Guide teams and clients on implementation requirements, next steps, and delivery planning.
• Prototyping: Lead prototyping and testing activities, ensuring effective, efficient, and multidisciplinary approaches.
• Stakeholder management: Build relationships, negotiate effectively, and guide stakeholders towards positive outcomes while delivering within budget.
• Managing complexity & ambiguity: Confidently navigate uncertainty and support teams and clients through complex service transformation challenges.
• Proactive & autonomous: Take ownership, lead conversations, identify opportunities, and consistently add value.