Service Design Lead (12 months - Maternity Cover)

Job introduction

We are recruiting for a Service Design Lead to join our Journey Experience Team.

If you put the customer at the heart of everything you do, enjoy working in a fast‑paced and agile environment, and have a talent for designing and delivering seamless end‑to‑end experiences that transform how our customers interact with us, then this may be the job for you!

Who Are We?

Not just another building society. Not just another job.

We're the fourth‑biggest building society in the UK, and what makes us a bit different is that we’re a mutual organisation. We don’t have shareholders; we’re owned by our members.

Our colleagues say Skipton is a great place to work — and you could be one of them, bringing new ideas for how we can keep customers at the heart of what we do.

Whatever your background and whatever your goals, we’ll help you take the next step towards a better future.

You’ll be joining the Journey Experience team, consisting of 2 Service Design Leads, 4 Senior Service Design Specialists, 3 Senior Researchers and 6 Senior UX Design Specialists. Our core role is to shape and drive exceptional member experiences by designing simple, seamless journeys that deliver meaningful value for the business and our customers.

What’s In It For You?

Skipton values work/life balance, and we are proud to support hybrid and flexible working where possible. Our newly refurbished head office offers a vibrant and collaborative working space.

We have a range of benefits available, including:

• Annual discretionary bonus scheme

• 25 days’ standard annual leave + bank holidays, rising by 1 day per year of service to a maximum of 30

• Holiday trading scheme, allowing you to buy or sell additional annual leave

• Matching employer pension contribution (up to 10% per annum)

• Colleague mortgage (conditions apply)

• Salary‑sacrifice scheme for hybrid and electric cars

• A commitment to training and development

• Private medical insurance for all colleagues

• 3 paid volunteering days per year

• Diverse and inclusive colleague networks, including our Carers and Pride Alliance groups

• A range of wellbeing benefits, including our cycle‑to‑work initiative and discounted gym membership

What Will You Be Doing?

• Leading a multidisciplinary team of Service Designers, User Researchers and UX Designers, nurturing a collaborative, user‑centred and outcome‑focused culture.

• Ensuring design, research and service activities across product teams align to the Experience Strategy set by the Senior Experience Lead and deliver measurable value for our members and the corporate plan.

• Providing day‑to‑day direction, support and coaching, enabling the team to deliver high‑quality, evidence‑based work within outcome‑focused product environments.

• Overseeing the planning and prioritisation of service design, UX and research activities to ensure the right problems are addressed at the right time.

• Driving consistency of practice across all disciplines by maintaining standards, processes, tools and ways of working.

• Guiding teams to turn insights, data and journey analysis into clear service recommendations that influence product roadmaps and priorities.

• Leading the creation of service design outputs such as service blueprints, current and future state journeys, concepts and system maps to identify friction points and improvement opportunities.

• Collaborating closely with Product, Engineering, Data, Compliance and Operations teams to ensure end‑to‑end solutions are viable, inclusive and grounded in evidence.

• Facilitating workshops, co‑creation sessions and alignment activities to build shared understanding of problems and opportunities.

• Partnering with the Senior Experience Lead to mature the experience practice, shape capability development, influence planning and embed service thinking across the organisation.

• Championing inclusive design, accessibility, evidence‑based decision making and continuous improvement across all experience disciplines.

What Do We Need From You?

• Proven leadership experience within service design or a closely related discipline, with responsibility for managing and developing practitioners.

• Deep understanding of service design methods — including blueprinting, journey mapping, systems mapping and service concept development.

• Strong working knowledge of UX design, user research and how these disciplines integrate to support outcome‑focused product teams.

• Natural curiosity and a drive to explore complexity, understand underlying causes and uncover opportunities for simplification and improvement.

• A strategic mindset with the ability to identify and remove non‑value‑adding steps in journeys, making experiences more seamless and intuitive.

• Confident facilitation skills, with experience running workshops, co‑creation sessions and cross‑functional alignment activities.

• Strong systems thinking capability — able to understand how people, processes, technology and policy shape end‑to‑end service performance.

• Experience turning qualitative and quantitative insights into compelling recommendations that influence product roadmaps and prioritisation.

• Solid understanding of accessibility, inclusive design and human‑centred design principles.

• Strong collaboration and stakeholder management skills, able to create trust, challenge constructively and guide teams through ambiguity.

• Experience delivering end‑to‑end service design and supporting iterative delivery in agile or hybrid environments.

• Ability to produce high‑quality strategic and delivery‑focused outputs, including journeys, blueprints, concepts, insight packs and service recommendations.

• Confidence working through ambiguity, challenging constructively and driving change through evidence‑based decision making.