Design System Design Manager

Location for this position is flexible, we are accepting candidates who are able to work Hybrid in either our Osterley or Leeds office. Want to do the best work of your life? With 24 million customers in 6 countries, make your mark at Europe’s leading media and entertainment brand. A workplace where you can proudly be yourself; our people make Sky a truly exciting and inclusive place to work.

As a Design System Design Manager in our digital customer experience team, you’ll own the creation of world‑class customer experiences and deliver transformative solutions across sky.com and the My Sky app via our design system. You’ll lead Agile teams, drive design strategy, and be accountable for outcomes that reflect our brand and meet customer needs. Sitting within the Customer Experience Centre of Excellence, you’ll support CX strategy, design excellence, and performance across product roadmaps for the UK & Ireland. From joining Sky to engaging with our latest services, we’re driven by one purpose: to create better experiences for our customers.

What you’ll do:

• Lead a small team of product designers to deliver world-class, innovative, and intuitive evidence-based user experiences across web and native platforms.
• Own the Sky design system strategic direction, ensuring scalability, governance, and alignment with product strategy and business goals.
• Partner with engineering, product, research, and analytics to ensure system usability, performance, and brand consistency across platforms.
• Be responsible for system architecture, tokenisation, documentation quality, and design‑engineering parity, while using AI tools and engaging with Design Ops to improve efficiency.
• Champion inclusive design and embed WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards across all components, patterns, and motion principles.
• Shape the end‑to‑end experience vision, define CX KPIs, and link design system adoption to measurable business outcomes.

What you’ll bring:

• Demonstrated experience delivering world‑class, large‑scale digital products and design systems across responsive web and native applications.
• Expert‑level skills with component libraries, token structures, and conditional prototyping for scalable systems.
• Mastery in accessibility to create inclusive experiences, using user research methods to understand customer problems and behaviours, and analytics tools (Usertesting, Adobe Analytics) to interpret user behaviour and analyse performance.
• Proven experience partnering with developers on component implementation, governance pipelines, and code alignment.
• Strong storytelling, stakeholder influence, and resilience in fast‑paced, evolving environments.

We’d love to see examples of your work. If you have a portfolio, or any selection of project artefacts, please share pieces that demonstrate your strengths in the following areas:

• People – How you’ve built, supported, or enabled high‑performing teams.
• Process – How you apply scalable user‑centred design methods to deliver measurable outcomes.
• Position – How you influence strategy and champion design across an organisation.
• Product – How your work has shaped world‑class, app‑first digital experiences, with clear outcomes and impact.

If you don’t have a formal portfolio, don’t worry links, slide decks, case studies or short write‑ups are all welcome. Choose whatever best tells the story of your contribution. But we do need to understand the process, the user needs, business goals, design changes based on evidence gathered, and customer outcomes & business impact.

The Rewards:

There’s one thing people can’t stop talking about when it comes to #LifeAtSky: the perks. Here’s a taster:

• Sky Q, for the TV you love all in one place.
• The magic of Sky Glass at an exclusive rate.
• A generous pension package.
• Private healthcare.
• Discounted mobile and broadband.
• A wide range of Sky VIP rewards and experiences.

How you’ll work:

The hybrid working expectations for this role are 3 days in the office per week. At Sky, we want to be a community that thrives by being together. Flexible working remains a key part of that. We want our people to have the best of both worlds – time working at home, as well as time in the office.

Your office base - London (Osterley): Our Osterley Campus is a 10-minute walk from Syon Lane train station. Or you can hop on one of our free shuttle buses that run to and from Osterley, Gunnersbury, Ealing Broadway and South Ealing tube stations. There are also plenty of bike shelters and showers. On campus, you’ll find 13 subsidised restaurants, cafes, and a Waitrose. You can keep in shape at our subsidised gym, catch the latest shows and movies at our cinema, get your car washed, and even get pampered at our beauty salon.

OR Leeds: Our spacious Leeds tech hub is less than a mile from Leeds train station. There’s plenty of parking in the surrounding streets and at the nearby CitiPark. Need a break? You can blow off steam over a game of pool or table tennis, and stay fit at our subsidised gym.

Inclusion:

At Sky we don’t just look at your CV. We’re more focused on who you are and your potential. We also know that everyone has a life outside work, so we’re happy to discuss flexible working. We are a Disability Confident Accredited Employer, and welcome and encourage applications from all candidates. We will look to ensure a fair and consistent experience for all and will make reasonable adjustments to support you where appropriate. Please flag any adjustments you need to your recruiter as early as you can.

Why wait? Apply now to build an amazing career and be part of a brilliant team. We can’t wait to hear from you. To find out more about working with us, search #LifeAtSky on social media.

A job you love to talk about.

Just so you know: if your application is successful, we’ll ask you to complete a criminal record check. And depending on the role you have applied for and the nature of any convictions you may have, we might have to withdraw the offer.