Member Experience and Service Design Manager

Member Experience & Service Design Manager Darlington (hybrid working)

2 days per week in the Darlington office, with flexibility depending on business needs and stakeholder engagement.

About the role

We're looking for a Member Experience & Service Design Manager to help shape how our members experience Railpen. In this role, you'll use insight, service design and customer experience principles to identify opportunities, improve journeys and deliver meaningful improvements that help members achieve better outcomes.

Working across Member Services, Digital, Communications, Change and Technology teams, you'll bring together member, employer and operational insight to understand what matters most and turn that understanding into practical, sustainable improvements. You'll collaborate with colleagues and external partners to design better experiences, influence decision‑making and help ensure members remain at the heart of everything we do. You'll play a key role in shaping how member experience evolves across our services and channels, helping to create more intuitive, joined up and effective experiences whether members engage with us online, by phone or through written communications.

This is a hands‑on role where you'll combine strategic thinking with delivery. You'll be equally comfortable analysing insight, facilitating workshops, building stakeholder relationships and driving initiatives through to implementation. Success in this role won’t be measured by the number of journeys mapped or recommendations produced. It will be measured by the improvements you help deliver and the positive difference those changes make for our members.

To learn more about Railpen, including our values, culture and purpose,

What you’ll be doing

This is a hands‑on role where you'll help design and deliver improvements across the member experience. You'll work across Member Services, Digital, Communications, Change and Technology teams to understand member needs, identify opportunities for improvement and help shape future services.

• Lead end‑to‑end member journey mapping across key interactions and life events.
• Use member, employer and operational insight to identify pain points and improvement opportunities.
• Design and implement initiatives that improve member engagement, understanding and outcomes.
• Support the development of intuitive and effective digital experiences that encourage greater adoption and self‑service where appropriate.
• Play a key role in shaping and delivering member experience improvements as part of major service and transformation initiatives, working alongside internal teams and external partners.
• Champion vulnerable member considerations, accessibility and inclusive design principles.
• Bring external insight, good practice and innovative thinking into Railpen.
• Help embed a member‑first culture across Member Services and the wider organisation.
• Influence and challenge stakeholders to ensure member needs remain central to decision‑making.

This isn’t a role where you’ll simply make recommendations and move on. We’re looking for someone who enjoys getting into the detail, leading work through to delivery and seeing improvements make a tangible difference.

What we’re looking for

We're looking for someone who combines strategic thinking with a strong bias for action. You'll be naturally curious, passionate about member and customer experience, and motivated by the opportunity to improve outcomes through meaningful change. You'll enjoy working across organisational boundaries, bringing people together around a common goal and turning ideas into tangible improvements.

Essential

• Experience leading customer or member experience improvements, service design activity, journey management or related initiatives.
• A proven track record of mapping and improving end‑to‑end customer or member journeys.
• Experience using insight, research, feedback and data to identify opportunities and drive improvement.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build credibility and challenge constructively.
• Experience delivering improvement, change or transformation initiatives across multiple teams and functions.
• A genuine passion for customer and member experience, with a strong understanding of what good outcomes look like.
• The ability to balance strategic thinking with hands‑on delivery and execution.
• Experience working within a complex, regulated or service‑led environment.
• An appreciation of the challenges organisations face when balancing customer needs, operational efficiency, regulation and technology change.

Desirable

• Experience within pensions, retirement, employee benefits, financial services or another highly regulated industry.
• Knowledge of service design methodologies and user‑centred design principles.
• Experience improving digital adoption and self‑service journeys.
• Experience applying behavioural insight techniques to improve engagement or outcomes.
• Experience supporting vulnerable customers or designing inclusive services.
• Experience working with external partners, consultancies or third‑party suppliers.
• Experience supporting large‑scale transformation programmes.
• Experience benchmarking customer or member experience against external best practice.
• People management experience isn’t essential.

Why is this role exciting now?

This is an exciting opportunity to shape how our members experience Railpen. You'll work across a wide range of teams, influence meaningful change, collaborate with external partners and play a key role in improving member outcomes through better journeys, services and experiences.

What you’ll get in return

A competitive salary (depending on experience) plus generous annual bonus plan

28 days annual leave plus bank holidays

We provide membership of the Railways Pension Scheme, a Defined Benefit arrangement under which you get a pension for life and a lump sum when you retire, based on your length of service and pay

4x Life Assurance cover

We support hybrid and flexible working along with very generous family leave including 12 months full pay maternity leave and 6 months full pay paternity leave

Take a look at the full range of benefits available to support you,

Inclusion at Railpen

At Railpen, diversity, equity and inclusion are core to who we are. We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels respected, supported and able to thrive. Our mission to secure a better future for our members is strengthened by the different perspectives and experiences our people bring. We are transparent about our gender pay gap and are actively committed to addressing it through fair and inclusive recruitment, progression and reward practices. We respect and support individuals’ pronouns and encourage colleagues to share them if they feel comfortable to do so. We’re proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of age, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, neurodiversity, or any other protected characteristic. If you need adjustments during the recruitment process, just let us know.

At Railpen we know that it’s the talent of our people that makes us good at what we do and enables us to continue to achieve our mission to pay members’ pensions securely, affordably and sustainably. The unique nature of Railpen offers our people a wide variety of interesting opportunities for innovation, thought leadership and personal development. We encourage people to challenge, explore unconventional ideas and give each other the space to learn from our mistakes. We take time to listen to each other’s ideas and understand what we each do, and what we need from each other to help us be at our best. Railpen is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse environment, we value diversity and welcome people from all backgrounds and walks of life.

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