Director of Design in Edinburgh

About Skyscanner

Everyone loves travelling, but planning is not without its challenges. That's why we've spent 20 years building tools that turn travel-planning chaos into a breeze. Today, around 160 million travellers count on us every month to skip the whole “47 browser tabs open” phase and find flights, cars, and hotels quickly and easily. Joining Skyscanner means becoming part of a global brand that's striving to become the planet's go-to travel hack accessible for all. Our vision? To be the world's number one travel ally.

Now, we're on the lookout for a Director of Design to lead a talented team of designers, elevate design excellence across the organisation, and ensure every traveller interaction feels effortless, intuitive and distinctly Skyscanner. You can be based in Barcelona, Edinburgh or London where we adopt a hybrid working policy of working in the office twice a week.

About the role

This isn't a traditional design leadership role focused on a single product area. You'll define the vision for design across Skyscanner, ensuring we continue to create experiences that travellers love while enabling teams to move faster, smarter and with greater consistency. It's a role for someone who wants to amplify the impact of design across an entire organization by evolving our design systems, AI-enabled workflows and design operations capabilities, helping teams deliver exceptional experiences at scale. You'll partner closely with leaders across Design, Product and Engineering to ensure design excellence isn't something a handful of specialists deliver — it's something the entire organization can contribute to.

What you'll be doing:

• Scaling design excellence: You'll oversee the evolution of our design systems, patterns and practices, helping teams create consistent, high-quality experiences across platforms.
• Building AI-enabled design capabilities: You'll shape how AI supports the design process, helping teams move from idea to execution faster through intelligent tooling, workflows and automation.
• Driving adoption and enablement: You'll ensure our systems, tools and practices are not only built well, but widely adopted through effective training, documentation, coaching and advocacy.
• Partnering across disciplines: You'll work closely with Design, Product, Engineering, Research and Content leaders to understand evolving needs and shape the capabilities required to support them.
• Leading and growing teams: You'll mentor and develop designers creating a culture of craft, innovation and continuous improvement.
• Measuring impact: You'll define success through meaningful outcomes, using customer insights, business metrics and team performance to continuously improve how design contributes to Skyscanner's success.

About you:

• Experienced design leader: You've built and led high-performing design organisations, ideally within complex digital product environments operating at scale.
• Design systems expert: You've successfully scaled design systems and understand the organisational, operational and technical challenges that come with driving adoption at scale.
• AI-curious and future-focused: You're excited about the role emerging technologies can play in design and have a point of view on how AI can enhance both customer experiences and design practice.
• Systems thinker: You naturally see patterns, connections and opportunities to create leverage, treating design infrastructure as a product with users, priorities and measurable outcomes.
• Technically confident: You understand the fundamentals of front-end technologies, component architecture, tokens and modern design tooling, allowing you to partner effectively with engineering teams.
• Influential collaborator: You can align senior stakeholders around a shared vision and communicate complex ideas clearly across different audiences.
• People-first leader: You're passionate about developing talent, creating inclusive environments and helping teams do the best work of their careers.

What it's like here:

We are the real deal— no corporate gloss, no empty promises. Just a team of genuinely curious, caring humans, building things that help travellers explore the world a little easier. Skyscanner is made up of brilliant humans from every corner of the world. We believe travel makes the world better — and that the same is true of our diverse teams. We're proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to building an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and products that are accessible to all.

Sound like your kind of adventure? Apply now and help us shape the future of travel. We're committed to ensuring our application and recruitment processes are inclusive and accessible to everyone. If you require any reasonable adjustments or accommodations for interviews, and/or wish to apply under the Disability Confident scheme, please let your recruiter know.