Snook are on a mission to design a world that works better for people.

We work with organisations to design more effective services which help people thrive. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more.

Snook started as a service design company in 2009. In the past five years, we have become a multidisciplinary team and scaled to more than double our original size, when we started up in Scotland. We are now based in Glasgow and London and our team is approaching 100 people. And we've worked with brilliant clients — from Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government.

About the role

As a Senior Service Designer at Snook, you’ll work in multidisciplinary teams to design products and services rooted in a deep understanding of users and their needs. You may also be helping out with new business development, supporting and managing more junior colleagues and contributing to the evolution of Snook’s practice. You’ll report directly to one of the Principal Service Designers.

One of Snook’s core missions is ‘Next Era Government’. We strive to ensure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, NHS Digital and NHSX. Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience in applying Government Service Standards and preparing for Government Service Assessments. We also work with local government and third and private sector organisations. 

This role provides the opportunity to work across these sectors while receiving knowledge and support from other Snooks. Where possible, we rotate people from one sector to another after 3 to 12 months (depending on the project), enabling people to develop in-depth knowledge of a variety of sectors.

• Location: UK-Based (This is a UK home based role, although you may be required to attend client offices and Snook or NEC sites for meetings, from time to time)
• Contract: Permanent
• Salary: UK £46,000 - £59,800 & London-weighting £50,000 - 65,000
• This role requires BPSS. In order to qualify for this, applicants will need to have been a continuous resident in the UK for the past 3 years

Key responsibilities of the role are:

• Project leading and direction – You’ll direct the design of inclusive, accessible and planet-friendly services. You’ll lead multidisciplinary teams through complex or high value projects. Your role will involve pointing teams and clients in the right direction to deliver on scope, on time and on budget. 

• Team support and management – You’ll help to support the service design team, for example by mentoring and helping to recruit colleagues. You may line manage more junior team members, including making recommendations around their progression. 

• Refining our practice – You’ll help to push the way our disciplines work together. With our Design Ops, Training, User Research, and Digital teams, you’ll further articulate our accessible, inclusive and planet-friendly design practices.

• Supporting new business – You’ll work closely with our clients and partners to spot and nurture opportunities springing from the work we do. You’ll likely play a role in all stages of Snook’s new business process.  

You will share these activities with your colleagues; this may mean that you focus more on some areas than others.

We’re keen to hear from people who can demonstrate some or all of the following skills and experience:

Core technical skills

• Research – You take the lead in planning and conducting research to uncover the key factors affecting a service and its use (contextual, operational, cultural, technological, human, strategic, business model...)  

• User-centred journeys & experiences - You can choose and lead appropriate approaches to designing viable user-centred services and experiences. 

• Strategy & systems thinking – You lead teams, clients and stakeholders to map strategies, systems and scenarios. You use systems thinking to identify opportunities and produce strategic recommendations.

• Facilitation - You lead your teams in planning and delivering workshops and engagements designed to support project objectives. You support your team to engage and inspire clients and stakeholders.

• Visual communication - You set clear direction for how visual communication can be used to simplify and convey complex concepts.

• Written communication - You lead teams to identify effective and impactful structures for written information. You can create and lead teams to prepare concise communication tailored to the needs of your audience.

• Recommendation & implementation - You scope the practical requirements to implement change or inform clients' next steps, including outlining timeframes and resource implications. You can identify opportunities for conversations with the client to recommend future steps.

• Prototyping - You lead teams, clients and stakeholders to conduct testing or prototyping throughout project phases. You work across disciplines to design, build and test effective prototypes that contribute to project outcomes.

Ways of working

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

Awareness
You problem-solve independently, anticipating and raising issues early.

You recognise opportunities for innovation or improvement internally and/or in client organisations.

Collaboration
You promote and develop open ways of working, encouraging shared decision making. 

You develop relationships proactively with clients and key people.

Growth 
You share your expertise in design and leadership skills across disciplines.

You inspire behaviour change in audiences by creating and delivering talks or external communications. 

Strategy
You consider the big picture, dependencies and long and short term implications when making decisions and recommendations. 

Your pitch to clients is succinct and compelling, communicating purpose and vision.

Values
You promote inclusive language and behaviour. 

You lead colleagues and the wider community with thinking around design practices that are user-centred, ethical, inclusive, accessible and sustainable. 

• A competitive salary 

• Generous holidays giving you 29.5 days holiday (including bank holidays), 4 of which are fixed to be taken at Christmas. Plus there are up to an additional 6 discretionary days for Christmas Closure

• A supportive maternity package

• We respect that people have commitments, providing flexible working hours through discussion

• A bike to work scheme

• Every Monday morning, we have a virtual team breakfast checkin where we eat together, share updates, learnings and our ambitions for the week ahead

• Membership to the Headspace, the mental health app

• We have an annual team-away day and quarterly show+tells; where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks

• We provide an annual training budget, which can be used for external opportunities from talks and conferences to more bespoke hands-on training. We have weekly learning sessions for all our team members, with a vast topic range

• Access to Snook social clubs, and opportunity to run your own 

• Snook group pension plan

• We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started

How to apply 

We are sifting and interviewing candidates on a weekly basis, so please don’t wait to submit your application. We have the right to close this vacancy at any time.

Please submit a CV, cover letter, your notice period and a portfolio of your work highlighting key projects. If you do not have a portfolio, we have created a simple template that you can use. 

In your covering letter, please tell us a little bit about yourself, why you want to work at Snook and what sort of design problems you’d be interested in tackling with us.

We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries, and are committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities. If you have any questions please get in touch at [email protected]

Due to the current Covid-19 epidemic, we anticipate that all interviews will be conducted remotely. We will offer interviews at times that suit you, so if you have children, caring duties, or other circumstances affecting your availability for an interview, we’re happy to offer convenient times outside of work hours.