About the Role
About Us McDonalds has run its business in the UK since 1974 and currently operates over 1500 restaurants across the UK and Ireland, serving almost four million customers each day. We are one of the UK’s largest private sector employers, employing over 170,000 people.
Department Overview
The Consultant, Restaurant Design plays a critical role in shaping the operational design of restaurants across the UK & Ireland, supporting both New Store Openings (NSO) and Reinvestment (IRLX) programs while maintaining alignment with current and emerging Global initiatives. This role owns the operational design framework and principles that enable kitchen design partners and wider project stakeholders to produce consistent, right‑first‑time layout recommendations. The focus is on back‑of‑house (BOH), kitchen positioning and operational flow, ensuring layouts deliver capacity, crew efficiency, customer flow and a strong operational experience at the lowest practical cost for forecasted volumes. Outcomes are delivered through alignment and direction of others – including architects, project managers, design partners, installers and internal stakeholders, rather than through direct design production. Strong people leadership is essential, including day‑to‑day leadership of the Officer, Restaurant Design, who supports design reviews, standards materials and governance outputs.
Duties
- Own and continuously evolve the operational design framework and principles for operational positioning and customer/crew flow across all restaurants.
- Provide expert review, challenge and strategic direction to kitchen design partner and architect outputs, improving right‑first‑time quality and reducing design rework and site delivery risk.
- Lead design governance and maintain a clear, stakeholder‑aligned change‑management process for standards, deviations and continuous improvement.
- Define and maintain bronze, silver and gold design standards to support implementation of new Global and local initiatives at different investment levels.
- Ensure operational designs are future‑proofed for capacity and service model evolution, while remaining cost‑optimised against forecasted volumes.
- Work in close partnership with Consultant, Equipment and GIRSM to ensure designs are deliverable, operationally compliant and supported by the correct operational ‘minimum equipment requirements’.
- Collaborate with Consultant, Equipment on high‑level equipment demand planning and forecasting driven by NSO/IRLX volume and design assumptions.
- Ensure project delivery partners (design partners, installers, project managers and architects) understand the operational ‘why’ behind standards and can engage franchisees consistently and confidently.
- Lead, coach and develop the Officer, Restaurant Design—setting clear priorities, quality expectations and development plans to scale the function as volumes increase.
Qualifications
A strong candidate will combine deep operational expertise, design understanding and influencing leadership, with the ability to translate restaurant performance needs into scalable, cost‑effective design standards.
