Principal Designer

As a Design Principal you will be leading multi-disciplinary teams including design, tech and data capabilities, to deliver strategically critical digital transformation initiatives. This involves working closely with directors, heads of practice and portfolio leads - using user-centred design to reimagine how they deliver value, and coaching clients and their teams to take bold steps around digital transformation in an AI-era. You will provide accountability for challenging and complex projects and programmes that might span a Government department, dive deep in a local council function, or influence a national charity. Using your deep knowledge and expertise to constantly balance quality of delivery, commercial constraints, and client and team needs. Ultimately enabling the organisations that we partner with to work more effectively and efficiently achieve outcomes for their users, communities and the planet.

You bring extensive experience of delivering strategic digital or transformation initiatives across the public sector, coupled with a deep user-centred design expertise in design or related disciplines. You will be passionate about delivering great outcomes and experiences for our clients and supporting our teams to deliver their best work. Acting as one of our most senior client facing roles, you will be comfortable holding commercial responsibility for delivery and business development. You will also be able to act as a trusted advisor, with oversight of quality assurance, team performance and wellbeing as part of delivery.

Responsibilities

• Delivery - lead teams, work and outcomes in complex projects, owning commercial responsibilities and impact measures, with a focus on delivering value to clients within time and budget constraints. This includes hands-on work and leading by example where needed, drawing from your own specialist design skills and knowledge.
• Leading productive project teams - strategically plan projects with oversight of how we apply methods and approaches, providing clear expectations for how others in your project teams deliver work, and ensuring teams and projects are inclusive.
• Strategic insight - put users at the heart of business strategy, providing creative and technical direction, and ensuring work is bold and ambitious, while knowing when to seek support or inspiration from others.
• Communication and storytelling - articulate the desired future for clients in compelling and creative ways through stories, visuals and other media. Connecting present change with longer term impact, whether that is improving user journeys, achieving policy goals or adopting new ways of working.
• Growth - develop trusted relationships with our clients, proactively look for and shape the next opportunity to add value and win work. Demonstrably share our work with wider audiences to showcase our skills and impact, like sector events and regular blog posts.
• Practice development - develop your skills and deepen the knowledge of others by bringing innovative practices and trends into our work. This includes owning parts of our service offer development, working closely with other Heads of Practice, the Growth team and the Chief Design Officer.
• Skills development - continuously maintain and update your skills and knowledge to stay current within your relevant field of expertise.

Professional knowledge and experience

• Previous experience leading high performing, client facing teams, projects, or programmes of work.
• Strong leadership skills, with an ability to draw on coaching skills and experience of how to use user centred approaches and a range of strategic design methodology.
• Strong business development experience, including developing and growing existing programmes of work, as well as new opportunities to best meet the needs of clients.

Technical skills

Essential

• Project direction - ability to manage ambiguity, lead strategic approaches to vision setting, problem framing, plan work and deliver outcomes.
• Commercial - demonstrable experience of planning and managing budgets, including achieving margins, and revenue as part of successful programme, project delivery, and/or account growth strategies. This can include responsibilities to work with or be accountable to Senior Partners.
• Navigating trade-offs - experience in responding to change and balancing team health, quality of delivery and outcomes, client relationships and commercial viability over time.
• Team leadership - experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams, co-ordinating work with other specialists.
• Client relationships - experience in challenging and coaching senior clients and stakeholders to be bold and ambitious, including those with low digital or user-centred design maturity.
• Change management and communication - ability to visualise, or work with others to communicate alternative futures and the value of change efforts in compelling ways.
• Business growth - experience of finding and shaping new opportunities for work.
• Ethics and values - ability to champion and uphold principles and standards around accessibility and inclusivity and ethical use of technology and data in the design of products, services and organisational shifts that we are involved in.

Desirable

• Emerging tech - experience influencing how emerging technologies can be applied in our work and deliver best value for our clients.
• Capability building - experience of developing training approaches and activities that increase the skills of client teams.

Behaviours and PACT values

• Purpose: You will be highly values driven, recognising that our clients needs are paramount. You will be able to approach client engagements with professionalism, creativity and flair, whilst balancing our commercial and operational needs.
• Accountability: As a member of the Design Strategy practice, you will be accountable for setting, and achieving goals specific to client-facing delivery and responsibilities. Clearly owning, defining and communicating practice standards that align to our DT Ways and Missions. You will lead by example, promoting a culture where quality, client experience and the pursuit of imaginative solutions is foremost.
• Craft: You will be able to balance multiple priorities while leading high performing teams and through establishing trusted relationships both inside and outside of TPXimpact. As a design or transformation leader who can lead others by example, you will need to navigate ambiguity and use your confidence here to quickly assimilate the direction and approaches that support positive outcomes for our clients and our business.
• Togetherness: You will be able to collaborate across internal departments and capability areas. Also ensuring strong relationships that demonstrate the importance of excellent delivery and client experience as a collective effort, rather than just focusing on your own practice areas. You will thrive working with, and through, others, providing clarity around vision, objectives and holding high standards for our work through the capabilities your practice holds.

About Us

We are a purpose driven organisation, supporting organisations to build a better future for people, places and the planet. Combining vast experience in the public, private and third sectors and expertise in human-centred design, data, experience and technology, we are creating sustainable solutions ready for an ever-evolving world. At the heart of TPXimpact, we are collaborative and empathetic. We are a team of passionate people who care deeply about the work we do and the impact we have in the world. We know that change happens through people, with people and for people. That’s why we believe in people-powered transformation. Working in close collaboration with our clients, we seek to understand their unique challenges, questioning assumptions and building in their teams the capabilities and confidence to continue learning, iterating and adapting.

Benefits Include

• 30 days holiday + bank holidays
• 2 volunteer days for causes that you are passionate about
• Maternity/paternity - 6 months Maternity Leave, 3 months Paternity Leave
• Life assurance
• Employer pension contribution of 5%
• Health cash plan
• Personal learning and development budget
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Access to equity in the business through a Share Incentive Plan
• Green incentive programmes including Electric Vehicle Leasing and the Cycle to Work Scheme
• Financial advice
• Health assessments

About TPXimpact - Digital Transformation

We drive fundamental change in approaches to product and service development, delivery and technology. Our agile, multidisciplinary teams use technology, design and data to deliver better results, improving outcomes for individuals, organisations and communities. By working in the open, in partnership with our clients, we not only transform their systems and services but also build the capability of their teams, so work can continue without us in the longer term. Our focus is sustainable change, always delivered with positive impact. We encourage hybrid working; our team is based across the country, both remotely and from our offices and hubs. Depending on your project, you will be typically expected to attend a Leeds, London or Manchester office once a week. We are an inclusive employer, and we care about diversity in our teams. Let us know in your application if you have accessibility requirements during the interview.