Service Design Lead

About Shift

We’re a people-led social change charity, with over 10 years experience turning bold ideas into sustainable realities. We work in partnership to build demonstrators that address the challenges of today and shift us towards a system that works. Our vision is a world where we all have the power and influence to shape the change we want, so that everyone can live a happy and healthy life.

We’re a team of designers, researchers, entrepreneurs and strategists that build new alliances to tackle social issues, with the people impacted by these issues in the lead. We’re thoughtful and think deeply, but we also believe the best change is getting to something real that people can see in their lives. Read about our vision and purpose, and our approach for building social change.

We work differently

Working at Shift is different to working at other places. To give you a taster – we don’t do line management, every team member runs their own reviews and decides their own salaries – all of which are transparent. Three years ago we made a decision to experiment with ways of operating and organising that push against the norm. We’ve learned loads and will continue to adapt – you can read about our journey to a flatter, roles-based, leaderful organisation here. You’ll love Shift if you’re no ego, kind, collaborative, hardworking, and willing to ask for help when you want it.

Building a diverse and inclusive team

We know that in order to be innovative and do good work, our team must be representative and inclusive. We’re particularly keen to increase our diversity of currently underrepresented groups in our team, including people with disabilities, Black, Asian, or Minority Ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ and from a range of socio-economic backgrounds and / or formal or informal educational backgrounds. All applicants must have the right to work in the UK.

About the role

We have a 1-4 levelling system at Shift to reflect experience and responsibility. This is a level 3 role. This typically means we’re looking for someone with 6+ years of experience in similar roles who can come in and hit the ground running – leading projects and small project teams with strategic support, collaboration and a great onboarding from our team

Project delivery

This will be your primary role and take up the bulk of your time. You’ll usually be spread across two projects. Your responsibilities will include:

• Leading social innovation projects with partners like national charities, housing associations, local government and funders (these could be research projects, design projects, or training and mentoring programmes)
• Work with partners to set direction, scope and plan projects – often bringing lots of clarity and focus to ambiguity
• Guide and mentor project teams and set the conditions for teams to do their best, most creative and impactful work
• Get hands-on and do the doing work yourself along with project teams – bringing your depth of experience on research and design methods
• Wrangle multiple stakeholders and build strong relationships with project teams – especially at a senior level from varied backgrounds
• Building Shift’s credibility and reputation with existing partners through delivery of high quality work and relationships – increasing their likeliness to work with us again or refer us to others

New business

This will be a secondary role with a small portion of your time. Your responsibilities will include:

• Leading or collaborating on proposal writing and pitching for new work with support from your teammates

Culture

Finally, we ask that everyone on the Shift team:

• Looks out for your own and your teammate’s wellbeing and workload
• Gives and receives feedback with care
• Helps to keep building and improving our special culture and ways of organising