Head of Product Design

Join to apply for the Head of Product Design role at The Times. The Times is Britain’s most trusted news brand and the UK’s No.1 quality daily newspaper. Founded in 1785, it is the home of authoritative, credible, and award-winning journalism. The Sunday Times, founded in 1822, is one of the best-known news brands in the world and the UK’s top-selling quality Sunday paper. Together, they are celebrated for challenging, inspiring, and informing millions of readers.

Team: The Times Media Product team is structured around three core pillars: Subscription Growth, Reader Experience, and Commercial. As the Head of Product Design, you will lead a talented and motivated team of product designers who contribute across these pillars. You will also collaborate within a wider guild of senior designers across brand, editorial, marketing, and product to ensure a consistent application of core design principles across all formats and platforms. Our mission is to craft clean, engaging ways of attracting customers and telling stories. Ultimately, we aim to deliver a beautiful product that enhances our journalism, with innovative approaches to retaining subscribers and attracting new readers.

Role: As the Head of Product Design, you will lead, mentor, and inspire a multidisciplinary team of user research, UX, and UI experts to create intuitive, engaging, and high-performing digital experiences. Working collaboratively across the product team and with other key stakeholders, you will oversee the execution of an emerging design system, foster innovation, and ensure our digital products meet the highest standards of usability and aesthetics.

Day-to-day, you will be:

• Leading, mentoring, and growing a high-performing digital product design team.
• Implementing a user-centred design strategy that aligns with core design principles and business goals.
• Overseeing the end-to-end design process, from research and ideation to prototyping and implementation.
• Championing design thinking and sharing best practices across the organisation by participating in the broader design guild.
• Advocating for accessibility, inclusivity, and usability in all design decisions.
• Using customer interviews, research tools, testing, and data analysis to understand customers and validate design decisions.
• Driving continuous discovery by creating feedback loops with users, testing in small increments, and maintaining regular touchpoints with customers.
• Managing design budgets, resources, and vendor relationships as needed.

What we are looking for in you:

• Proven experience leading a digital product design team in a fast-paced environment, with a track record of developing top design talent.
• A strong portfolio demonstrating expertise in UX/UI design, interaction design, and visual design.
• A deep understanding of user-centred design principles, with a history of making impactful changes through smart, data-driven UX implementation.
• Experience with user research methodologies, usability testing, and analytics.
• Proficiency in industry-standard design tools such as Figma and research tools like UserZoom.
• The ability to balance business objectives with audience needs to create meaningful design solutions.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with confidence in leading workshops, presenting ideas, and influencing stakeholders at all levels.
• A solid understanding of front-end development principles and experience working closely with engineering teams.
• A passion for innovation, problem-solving, and continuous learning.
• Familiarity with Agile and Lean UX methodologies.
• Ideally, experience in editorial/publishing or subscriber-based products, though this is not essential.

If you believe you have the skills and passion to succeed, even if you don’t meet every requirement on the list, we encourage you to apply. We value potential just as much as experience and are eager to hear from individuals who are enthusiastic about learning and growing with us.

At News UK, we know the value of working together, which is why we operate a hybrid working policy with a minimum of three days a week in the office. Being in the office allows us to collaborate, innovate, and thrive as a team in our vibrant and dynamic workspace.

We are News UK: One of the leading media businesses in the UK and Ireland. Our newsbrands include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday and The TLS. Our national broadcast brands include talkSPORT, Times Radio, Talk and Virgin Radio UK, and we have market-leading local radio stations across Ireland. Our world-famous brands provide news, analysis, opinion and entertainment to almost 40 million people each month.

Life at News: Driven by passion, guided by principles and acting with purpose. We represent, reflect and reach the nation, telling the stories that matter. To do this, we believe our employees must represent different backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. We strive to maximise and encourage every individual’s potential and ensure everyone feels valued.

Some of our benefits include:

• Maternity leave up to 18 weeks full basic salary & paternity leave up to 2 weeks
• Wide range of training available, plus full LinkedIn Learning access
• Private medical insurance including coverage for pre-existing conditions
• Discounted gym memberships, free ClassPass at Home, weekly virtual yoga classes
• ‘Bikes for Work’ and ‘Electric Car’ scheme
• Up to 60% discount on Harper Collins books
• Access to wellbeing benefits such as EAP, physio/massage and counselling
• A generous pension scheme with employer contributions of up to 5%
• 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays and up to 4 volunteering days per year

We want to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to perform to their best when applying for a role. If you would like to receive any information in a different way or for us to do anything differently to support you apply for any of our roles please contact us.