Senior Designer (Kitchens & Living Spaces) – Winchester

Senior Designer (Kitchens & Living Spaces) – Winchester

Location: Hobsons Choice, Winchester

Role: Full-time, permanent

Salary & Package: £35,000–£45,000 basic, depending on experience + uncapped performance-related commission. Realistic OTE £60,000–£75,000+

Some design roles begin when an enquiry arrives. This one starts before that.

Hobsons Choice designs and delivers exceptional kitchens and interiors for private clients across the South of England.

We are looking for an experienced designer to join our Winchester studio. But this is not simply another design position.

We want someone who can help us build something.

The Role

Our Winchester design studio has enormous potential, and we are looking for somebody who wants to take a genuine interest in its success.

You will, of course, work with clients: understanding how they live, developing intelligent design solutions, presenting ideas, specifying products and ultimately creating beautiful, highly considered interiors.

But we are looking for someone who is interested in what happens before the client walks through the door too.

Someone who wants to develop relationships with architects, interior designers, developers and other professionals across Hampshire and the surrounding area.

Someone who will pick up the telephone, arrange a coffee, attend an event, visit a practice, reconnect with a past client or introduce Hobsons Choice to somebody we ought to know.

Someone who has ideas for events in the showroom and is enthusiastic about working with our marketing team to make them happen.

And, importantly, someone with enough design experience and product understanding that when those conversations create an opportunity, they can take the next step themselves.

You should be able to sit down with a client, architect or interior designer and have a proper design conversation. You will be able to listen, challenge where appropriate, contribute ideas and add genuine value.

More Than a Designer

This isn't a conventional showroom position where the job is simply to respond to the enquiries that arrive.

We want someone with a degree of entrepreneurialism about them.

You will work closely with our Managing Director, marketing team and wider senior team, but we would like you to develop a real sense of ownership for Winchester: its reputation, its relationships, its pipeline and ultimately its success.

That doesn't mean running the business.

It means caring whether the showroom is busy.

It means noticing when there are people or practices we should know but don't.

It means wanting to create opportunities rather than simply waiting for them.

And it means becoming one of the people in the local design and property community that others genuinely enjoy dealing with.

Design Matters

The commercial side of the position is important, but this is first and foremost a senior design appointment.

We are looking for somebody with strong kitchen, interior or closely related design experience who understands proportion, materials, space, detail and the practical realities of delivering high-quality residential projects.

Our projects can involve kitchens, utility rooms, dressing rooms, living spaces and other fitted interiors, combining furniture, appliances, stone and specialist products.

You'll be supported by an experienced team with considerable technical and product knowledge, but you need to bring your own design credibility.

You don't need to have worked with every product we sell. We can teach products and systems. It is much harder to teach curiosity, judgement, commercial instinct and the desire to build relationships.

Who We're Looking For

You are likely to be an experienced kitchen or interior designer, with a minimum of 5-years experience in the high-end residential sector, who has reached the point where you want a little more from your role.

You may already have a strong network of architects, interior designers, developers or clients, or perhaps you're simply the person who naturally develops those relationships wherever you work.

You'll probably enjoy meeting people and getting out from behind your desk. You'll be comfortable representing the business at professional and social events and will understand that some of the best opportunities don't start with a formal sales enquiry.

At the same time, you'll be someone clients trust with a significant project.

You'll be commercially aware, organised and interested in the detail required to turn good design into a successful finished installation.

Above all, you'll take ownership.

What You'll Need

You'll need:

• A minimum of 5-years strong experience in kitchen, interior or closely related high-end residential residential design.
• The confidence and credibility to discuss design with private clients, architects and interior designers
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills
• Strong organisation and attention to detail
• Commercial awareness and an understanding of the importance of converting opportunities into successful projects
• The confidence to represent Hobsons Choice externally and develop new professional relationships
• A proactive approach. Comfortable creating opportunities rather than simply responding to them
• A full UK driving licence, as the role will involve client, site and professional practice visits
• Confidence using design and presentation software. Experience with our particular systems is not essential and training can be provided

Experience within premium kitchens, interiors, fitted furniture or the wider high-end residential market would be particularly valuable.

About Hobsons Choice

Hobsons Choice has been designing and delivering premium kitchens and interiors for more than 45 years, with design studios in Bath, Swindon and Winchester.

We work with exceptional private clients as well as architects, interior designers, developers and other property professionals.

Our work combines design, furniture, appliances, stone, installation and project delivery, allowing us to take considerable responsibility for the finished result and for the experience our clients have getting there.

Our product portfolio includes some of the strongest names in contemporary European design alongside our own carefully developed furniture collections.

We are ambitious about the next stage of the business, and Winchester is an important part of that.

What Success Looks Like

Over time, we want you to become one of the faces of Hobsons Choice in Winchester and the wider Hampshire design community.

We want architects and interior designers to know you.

We want past clients to remember you.

We want new clients to recommend you.

We want our marketing team to have someone in Winchester saying, “I've got an idea — can we do something with this?”

And we want the opportunities you help create to turn into beautifully designed, commercially successful projects.

What We Offer

• 25 days' annual leave plus bank holidays
• Company pension
• Salary & Package: £35,000–£45,000 basic, depending on experience + uncapped performance-related commission. Realistic OTE £60,000–£75,000+
• Parking permit included

Location

The position will be based at our Winchester studio.

The working hours are 8.30am to 5.30pm, five days per week. Design staff work on a rota including alternate Saturdays, with a weekday off in lieu.

Occasional travel to client sites, professional practices, supplier locations and our other studios will be required. Business mileage will be reimbursed. There will also occasionally be professional, networking or showroom events outside normal working hours.

If you are an accomplished designer who enjoys people as much as design, and the idea of helping to build the reputation and success of a showroom appeals to you, we'd be very interested in talking.

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