Design Excellence Lead Branding/Packaging – 12 month FTC in Slough

About the role

The Design Excellence Lead – Branding/Packaging is a highly skilled hands-on design role, responsible for delivering exceptional branding and packaging solutions that drive Reckitt’s category growth and brand equity. This role blends creative expertise with executional excellence, ensuring Reckitt’s design outputs remain world-class. This role is not focused on project management but instead on crafting, developing, and executing design work that aligns with Reckitt’s brand principles, category strategies, and consumer insights. The Design Excellence Lead collaborates closely with internal teams, external agencies, and cross-functional partners to deliver impactful, high-quality branding and packaging solutions.

Your responsibilities

• Hands-On Design Execution & Creative Leadership
  • Develop and execute exceptional branding and packaging designs, ensuring consistency and alignment with category brand principles.
  • Lead concept development and refinement, exploring new visual identities, materials, and structures.
  • Create high-fidelity packaging assets, including illustrations, typography, and structural design elements.
  • Collaborate with external agencies to deliver best-in-class design outputs, ensuring Reckitt’s brands stand out globally.
  • Maintain a strong focus on consumer-first design thinking, ensuring packaging and branding resonate with target audiences.
• Collaboration & Cross-Functional Influence
  • Work closely with Senior Design Excellence Managers, Marketing, R&D, and Commercial teams to align creative work with strategic goals.
  • Provide creative guidance and mentorship to junior designers and external partners to ensure a high standard of work.
  • Act as a bridge between conceptual strategy and execution, ensuring that ideas translate into compelling final assets.
  • Partner with supply chain and production teams to ensure feasibility, quality, and cost-effectiveness of packaging design solutions.
• Brand Stewardship & Governance
  • Ensure all branding and packaging work aligns with established Brand Hubs, category-wide identity systems, and activation guardrails.
  • Maintain and contribute to the evolution of design standards, guidelines, and toolkits for Reckitt’s brands.
  • Work with the Global Head of Design Operations to ensure design files, assets, and documentation are properly managed.
  • Stay ahead of emerging trends, competitor activity, and material innovations, ensuring Reckitt remains at the forefront of branding and packaging design.
• Innovation & Continuous Improvement
  • Explore new materials, printing techniques, and digital packaging innovations to enhance consumer engagement and sustainability.
  • Leverage AI-driven design tools and automation where applicable to improve workflow efficiency.

The experience we’re looking for

• Experience in branding and packaging design, preferably within a global agency.
• Proven track record of executing world-class branding and packaging solutions.
• Expert proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign) and packaging development tools.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams and external partners.
• Deep understanding of printing techniques, materials, and packaging innovation trends.
• Strong portfolio showcasing strategic, visually compelling branding and packaging work.

Skills

• Craft & Execution: Ability to deliver visually stunning, detail-oriented packaging and branding work.
• Brand Stewardship: Ensures branding and packaging aligns with Reckitt’s visual identity and category strategies.
• Design Systems & Guidelines: Ability to create and uphold brand standards, ensuring consistency.
• Innovation & Material Expertise: Awareness of cutting-edge materials, printing methods, and sustainability.
• Collaboration: Strong communication and influencing skills, ensuring seamless integration across teams.

Mindset

• Execution-Driven: Passion for creating world-class branding and packaging, with meticulous attention to detail.
• Consumer-Centric: Deep understanding of consumer behaviours and packaging interaction trends.
• Hands-On & Craft-Led: Thrives in a role focused on design execution rather than project management.
• Curious & Future-Focused: Always exploring new ways to elevate brand experiences through design innovation.
• Collaborative & Adaptable: Enjoys working in fast-paced, iterative design environments.

The skills for success

• Brand Strategy
• Presentation skills
• Drive Innovation
• Storytelling
• Creativity
• Digital Marketing
• Commercial acumen
• Collaboration
• FMCG/Consumer Health Experience

What we offer

With inclusion at the heart of everything we do, working alongside our four global Employee Resource Groups, we support our people at every step of their career journey, helping them to succeed in their own individual way. We invest in the wellbeing of our people through parental benefits, an Employee Assistance Program to promote mental health, and life insurance for all employees globally. We have a range of other benefits in line with the local market. Through our global share plans we offer the opportunity to save and share in Reckitt’s potential future successes. For eligible roles, we also offer short-term incentives to recognise, appreciate and reward your work for delivering outstanding results. You will be rewarded in line with Reckitt’s pay for performance philosophy.

Equality

We recognise that in real life, great people don’t always ‘tick all the boxes’. That’s why we hire for potential as well as experience. Even if you don’t meet every point on the job description, if this role and our company feels like a good fit for you, we still want to hear from you. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, disability or medical condition; colour, ethnicity, race, citizenship, and national origin; religion, faith; pregnancy, family status and caring responsibilities; sexual orientation; sex, gender identity, gender expression, and transgender identity; protected veteran status; size or any other basis protected by appropriate law.