Senior Service Designer & Change Lead

Summary

Join Version 1 as a Service Designer & Change Lead and work at the heart of multidisciplinary teams to shape end-to-end services. Lead on mapping current and future states, aligning digital delivery with policy and operational realities, and helping clients make confident, evidence-based decisions. Design and implement change strategies to ensure new services and ways of working are successfully adopted. Collaborate closely with various design and technical teams. Help shape service visions, facilitate workshops, and define structures, processes, and journeys. Guide organizations through transformations, such as moving from waterfall to agile delivery or implementing new technologies. Version 1 offers a comprehensive benefits package prioritizing employee wellbeing, professional growth, and financial stability.

Requirements

• Simplify complexity—cutting through noise to make services usable, scalable, and understandable for teams and users
• Be comfortable working in ambiguity and helping teams find direction
• Plan and lead workshops and navigate, manage and influence diverse stakeholders
• Understand and design for accessibility and inclusion across channels and touchpoints
• Define the service vision and unite a team around it
• Feel confident pitching the value of service design to colleagues, clients and stakeholders—including those unfamiliar with it
• Have experience applying change management methodologies such as ADKAR, Kotter's 8-Step Process, or Lean Change Management
• Assess organisational readiness for change and design tailored change strategies
• Be skilled at identifying and working with change champions, resistors, and stakeholders across all levels of an organisation
• Understand how to measure and evaluate change success, including adoption rates and cultural shifts
• Design and deliver change communications that resonate with different audiences and address concerns proactively
• Have experience supporting transitions from traditional project delivery to agile ways of working
• Be comfortable facilitating difficult conversations about organisational change and helping teams navigate uncertainty
• Think beyond the immediate problem to design services and organisational structures that are sustainable, strategic and future-proof
• Have knowledge of progressive organisational models (such as sociocracy, holacracy, or self-management) and when to apply them
• Assess and redesign organisational structures, governance, and decision-making processes
• Understand how to implement new policies (such as AI governance) and ensure meaningful adoption rather than just compliance
• Have excellent communication skills, able to adapt information to different audiences and mediums
• Build a strong evidence base to support design and change decisions—and clearly explain or defend those decisions when challenged
• Be skilled at navigating difficult conversations, helping teams find common ground, and knowing when to escalate issues constructively
• Facilitate workshops that bring together diverse stakeholders to co-create solutions and build buy-in for change
• Interpret performance data to make design decisions and inform success metrics to effectively evaluate success and impact
• Visualise complex systems clearly through service blueprints, journey maps, organisational charts, or ecosystem diagrams and adapt the output to the audience learning preferences
• Be confident with tools like Miro and Lucid with basic level of Figma
• Understand and can effectively use design-thinking, systems thinking, change management frameworks, and co-design techniques to help guide teams and make decisions
• Work with clients, not just for them—co-creating solutions as one team, and building trusted, respectful partnerships
• Have experience working in agile, multidisciplinary teams
• Coach and mentor others in both service design and change management approaches

Preferred Qualifications

• Have experience working to the GOV.UK Service Standard or within the public sector
• Have worked on digital transformation programmes that involved significant organisational change
• Have experience with AI implementation and governance
• Be familiar with progressive organisational design approaches and frameworks

Benefits

• Share in our success with our Quarterly Performance-Related Profit Share Scheme, where employees collectively benefit from a share of our company's profits
• Strong Career Progression & mentorship coaching through our Strength in Balance & Leadership schemes with a dedicated quarterly Pathways Career Development programme
• Flexible/remote working, Version 1 is tremendously understanding of life events and people’s individual circumstances and offer flexibility to help achieve a healthy work life balance
• Financial Wellbeing initiatives including; Pension, Private Healthcare Cover, Life Assurance, Financial advice and an Employee Discount scheme
• Employee Wellbeing schemes including Gym Discounts, Bike to Work, Fitness classes, Mindfulness Workshops, Employee Assistance Programme and much more
• Generous holiday allowance, enhanced maternity/paternity leave, marriage/civil partnership leave and special leave policies
• Educational assistance, incentivised certifications, and accreditations, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat
• Reward schemes including Version 1’s Annual Excellence Awards & ‘Call-Out’ platform
• Environment, Social and Community First initiatives allow you to get involved in local fundraising and development opportunities as part of fostering our diversity, inclusion and belonging schemes