Principal Service Designer

Come join us and make a difference in the world!

Discover more at NEC Digital Studio | Made for Life (necsws.com)

At NEC Digital Studio, we believe in design practices that make the world more human.

NEC Digital Studio was created to put people at the centre of services, positively changing how they experience the world. Everything we design, build and maintain is made for life. Our mission is to empower organisations to be more effective, inclusive and sustainable, through tools, systems and experiences that are intelligent, integrated and intuitive for all.​

As a people-first digital studio, we are designing and developing evidence-led solutions at scale to transform the services used by everyone, every day.​

We specialise in working with seldom heard voices and diverse user groups. We practice participatory co-design and ethical research. Our teams are experts in accessibility and digital inclusion

We’d love your help. And we’ll support you all the way. 

About the role 

As a Principal Service Designer at NEC Digital Studio, you will hold multiple responsibilities around projects, the 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. 

Salary: £59,800 - £75,000 dependent on experience and location 

The role is a hybrid role, with an expectation of 50% attendance in our studios, and may include occasional travel related to projects. 

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for a skilled practitioner with significant experience in delivering service design projects. The focus of your role will be to create end-to-end, evidence-based designs for services which are inclusive, accessible and planet-friendly. You’ll often be working with multidisciplinary teams on complex projects where autonomy and project management will be important. 

We’re on the hunt for someone who will champion our values: to care passionately, be fluent in people, believe in your craft, push convention, be open to change, value each other

We work with a broad range of clients, some of whom are completely new to user-centred design (UCD). This means you’ll also play a key role in championing our UCD approach. 

Principals at NEC Digital Studio are experts in their fields with a significant amount of experience. There are three key strands of work that the Principal Service Designer will be involved in. We do not expect candidates to have expertise in all of these fields: 

Practice

You will have led multiple, complex projects working with multi-disciplinary teams across a range of sectors.

You will contribute to shaping NEC Digital Studio Service Design practice, quality standards, and how our disciplines work together. You will support colleagues to embrace the importance of accessible, inclusive, and planet-friendly design.

Principals at NEC Digital Studio are champions for their practice’s within NECSWS (our parent organisation) and you will advocate for Service Design to grow its presence across the business, and clarify how the practice works with the rest of the business.

Leadership

Principals at NEC Digital Studio direct, and where necessary lead, complex, high-value projects and ensure effective collaboration when working with other disciplines. You may also act as a strategic director on long-term partnership frameworks, working with stakeholders to shape multiple projects aligned to the client’s strategy.

You will be responsible for helping to build and support the service design team; mentoring, line managing and recruiting colleagues whilst ensuring a supportive and productive culture. This will include owning the resolution of Human Resources matters, identifying training needs and how they might be fulfilled.

You will build strong, collaborative relationships with other leaders and teams within NEC Digital Studio, and act as a bridge between leadership, operations, human resources, delivery, practice teams, and other teams across the organisation. You will work alongside the NEC Digital Studio Training team to create and deliver training content and promote NEC Digital Studio through internal and external communications and by speaking at conferences and events.

Commercial

Principals at NEC Digital Studio have significant involvement in our new business activities. You will collaborate with colleagues across the business, using your subject matter expertise and experience to scope new opportunities, cost projects, identify and mitigate risk, create proposals and statements of work, and deliver pitches.

Our Principals play a vital role in ensuring that our projects are delivering high quality outcomes and great relationships with our clients. You will plan projects that combine the skills available within the team to deliver great outcomes for our clients and provide fulfilling experiences for our staff with opportunities for them to grow. You will be expected to build rapport and strong relationships with clients, funders, and other key stakeholders to create repeat business and grow our reputation.

Your skills and experience

We’re keen to hear from applicants who can meet the requirements above, and demonstrate some or all of the following skills, experience and qualities:

• User-centred journeys & experiences - You coach teams and stakeholders in the process of designing user-centred services and experiences. You use your knowledge to expand the teams' thinking whilst remaining aligned to client strategies and wider contextual constraints.
• Research – You can collaborate with User Researchers to direct teams as they plan and conduct research, ensuring that their approach is effective and delivers high quality findings and insights aligned to project outcomes.
• Strategy & systems thinking – You coach and challenge teams to effectively navigate complex contexts and scenarios. You can facilitate conversations with clients to help them build consensus on strategic direction. You oversee client contacts, working strategically to identify projects and programmes that meet their objectives.
• Facilitation - You direct teams in the process of designing workshops, guiding on the best approaches to deliver project objectives. You ensure teams are prepared to effectively run sessions and/or present to clients and stakeholders. You’ll take the lead in planning and delivering high value, high risk and/or highly complex meetings, workshops, or processes.
• Visual communication - You provide creative direction to teams and ensure visual communications are professional, have the intended impact, are accessible and pitched correctly for the target audience.
• Written communication - You direct and support teams to ensure that written deliverables have the intended impact, are pitched correctly for the target audience and are of the sufficient quality.
• Recommendation & implementation - You direct teams to consider implementation requirements / next steps for projects and communicate them effectively to the clients. You undertake conversations with clients, supporting them in the planning of their next steps.
• Prototyping - You direct teams to scope and run prototyping exercises. You ensure that teams are using appropriate and efficient approaches to prototyping and testing. You promote a multidisciplinary approach to designing, building at testing of prototypes.
• Stakeholder management – you know how to negotiate and guide clients and stakeholders towards positive outcomes that deliver projects within budget.
• Managing complexity and ambiguity – Services are complex and messy! You’re up for leaping into the unknown, supporting our team members and clients to navigate the uncertainty that comes with service transformation projects
• Proactive and autonomous – you can lead the conversation, and look for ways to participate and add value

Ways of working  

You should be able to demonstrate that you are able to meet some, or all, of the following behaviours, values, and competencies.  

• Awareness: You’re empathetic and inclusive, modelling compassion, humanity and fairness within and beyond NEC Digital Studio. You talk openly about wellness and inspire colleagues to do the same. You take responsibility for improvement efforts within your team, and give them the autonomy to achieve results. You take client and industry forces into account when making recommendations around NEC Digital Studio initiatives, projects, and recruitment.  
• Collaboration: You’re highly communicative, speaking on behalf of the community both inside and outside of NEC Digital Studio and empowering teams to understand company strategy. You promote and coach on methods of generating ideas, and are highly experienced in managing teams to deliver complex products/services. You work openly, surfacing the unsaid leadership discussions and enabling transparency.  
• Growth: You grow our new business pipeline by finding opportunities to expand teams or work on additional projects with current clients, or by introducing potential new clients. You’re highly experienced in crafting complex and high risk projects, and managing stakeholders’ expectations. You help colleagues grow by coaching and teaching them in design and leadership skills. You inspire behaviour change in audiences by creating and delivering talks or blog posts.   
• Strategy: You lead on the design and implementation of strategy, ensuring business requirements are met. You navigate constraints and risks to facilitate decisions. You build and leverage a network with current and future influencers and stakeholders.  
• Values: You lead colleagues and the wider community with thinking around design practices that are user-centred, ethical, inclusive, accessible, and sustainable for the planet. You guide people in successfully incorporating these concepts into their work. 

Qualifications

We welcome applicants from all professional backgrounds. We acknowledge that we didn’t all start out as service designers and are proud of the varied expertise amongst our team. Our minimum criteria is that you have degree or professional experience that is relevant to Service Design.

We pride ourselves in offering an excellent benefits package, including an above average pension scheme. When you join the team at NEC Software Solutions, you are provided with the following:

• Private Medical Cover funded by NEC for Employees (with the option to add family members at an additional cost) 
• 25 days paid holiday with the option to buy/sell (FTE)
• 4 x basic salary life assurance cover funded by NEC (with the option to increase cover at an additional cost)
• A Group Pension Plan with fantastic employer contributions up to a maximum of 8.5%
• A selection of flexible benefits to suit your individual needs
• All colleagues get free access to LinkedIn Learning. Over 15000 courses covering a huge breadth of subjects. Learn about what you like, when you like, how you like. 

OTHER INFORMATION

• Candidates must be able to demonstrate a pre-existing right to work and travel within the UK. Documentary evidence will be required.
• All offers are subject to satisfactory vetting, references and occupational health checks. 
• Depending on the nature of the role a Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) check may also be required.

NEC Software Solutions is an equal opportunities employer, welcoming applications from all communities. If you require any reasonable adjustments or have specific accessibility needs during the recruitment or interview process, please feel free to share these with us. We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accommodating experience for all candidates.

Who We Are:

We’re NEC Software Solutions (part of global tech giant NEC Corporation). While you read this ad, our software is helping to dispatch ambulances, support families, keep trains on the move, locate missing people and even test the hearing of newborn babies.

Working with us, you’ll be helping our 3,000+ employees push the boundaries of what’s possible and support amazing public services.

We work with governments, hospitals, police forces, housing providers, local authorities and more. We help them pay financial support faster, speed up treatments for patients and respond to emergencies in the right way. The more we do, the more our customers can do for others. And together, we make a world of difference.

We’d love your help. And we’ll support you all the way.