Senior Service Design and Presales Architect in Slough

The Service Design and Presales Architect is a senior, hands-on role responsible for defining, positioning and shaping our Managed Services. You will lead the service design workstream across bids and proposals, translating customer needs into clear, compelling, and operationally sound service models. The role includes designing repeatable and scalable services, including service scope, levels, governance, and supporting commercial viability. You will collaborate with Sales, Bid Management, Delivery Practice, Operations and Solution Architecture to ensure proposed services are deliverable and effectively transitioned into operations.

Accountabilities and Key Responsibilities:

• Presales, Bids & Customer Engagement: Lead the service design and presales workstream across RFIs, RFPs, ITTs, CQs PQQs and tender responses, ensuring all service-related documentation is accurate, high quality, and clearly demonstrates customer value, benefits and outcomes. Engage with customers and internal teams to validate requirements, translating these into clearly defined, realistic service models, customer journeys, and operationally viable solutions.
• Lead the creation of high-quality, comprehensive Statements of Work, ensuring clarity, operational feasibility, and alignment with customer requirements. Take ownership of the document approval process, including securing internal sign-off and obtaining customer agreement/signature, to ensure all commitments are formally validated and fully actionable.
• Take responsibility for end-to-end costing and resourcing of Managed Services, including labour, tooling, licensing, capacity planning, onboarding effort, and ongoing operational effort. Work closely with Finance, Commercial, Product, Operations, Legal, and Solution Architecture teams to ensure assumptions, risks, dependencies, and delivery requirements are fully understood and reflected in cost models and pricing structures.
• Develop and articulate win themes and value propositions that demonstrate how proposed services meet customer requirements and deliver measurable value and collaborate with Sales and Bid Management to structure proposals, align with customer priorities, and address gaps or weaknesses.
• Represent the organisation as the senior presales authority in customer meetings, workshops and deal review boards. Lead qualification, scoping, and progression of opportunities, confidently presenting our propositions while articulating the service model, delivery approach, commercial structure, and expected outcomes.
• Provide strategic guidance, address complex customer requirements, and influence decision-making to secure commitment and strengthen long-term relationships.
• Proactively challenge assumptions, identify opportunities for innovation, recommend improvements to service design and delivery approaches, and ensure all customer commitments are realistic, deliverable, clearly documented, and properly transitioned into operational teams via SMEs with appropriate governance approvals.
• Drive the continuous evolution of the Managed Service presales strategy, taking a proactive role in analysing win/loss outcomes, identifying trends, and recommending targeted improvements.
• Maintain a deep and authoritative understanding of our Managed Service portfolio, go-to-market strategies, capabilities, and key service areas to qualify opportunities effectively, provide strategic guidance to the business, and maximise revenue generation potential.
• Take full accountability for the end-to-end presales lifecycle for assigned opportunities, ensuring each engagement is expertly managed from initial qualification through to formal closure and seamless transition into BAU support.
• Support Sales during contract negotiations, renewals and change controls, providing service design insight to ensure agreements remain deliverable, aligned with the proposed service model and commercially sound.

Service Design & Proposition Development:

• Design and document high-quality, repeatable and scalable Managed Services, defining scope, service levels, roles and responsibilities, processes, expected outcomes and value delivered.
• Create clear supporting materials and service descriptions that explain how each service works, what the customer can expect and the value it provides, ensuring content is accessible to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Develop comprehensive Operational Service Designs and Service Descriptions covering workflows, supporting processes, reporting, escalation models, tooling requirements and service governance, ensuring services can be delivered consistently, efficiently and in line with operational capability.
• Work closely with Solution Architects, Product Teams, Operations, Delivery, Finance and Commercial teams to confirm services are technically feasible, operationally viable and aligned with company standards, strategy and commercial objectives.
• Contribute to cost modelling by identifying the operational activities, resources and tooling required, ensuring these are fully considered in pricing discussions.
• Support the creation and continual improvement of standard service components, templates and frameworks, including service catalogues, Statements of Work, diagrams and onboarding processes, to drive consistency and reusability across customers.
• Continuously improve service design by capturing operational feedback, identifying risks and constraints and refining processes to enhance quality, efficiency and the overall customer experience.
• Identify opportunities for innovation that differentiate the service offering, improve effectiveness or introduce additional value.
• Ensure all service designs incorporate performance measures, reporting requirements, compliance considerations and clearly defined customer obligations.
• Monitor market trends and emerging customer needs to inform portfolio development and recommend new services or enhancements that strengthen the offering.

Stakeholder Collaboration:

• Facilitate the seamless transition of agreed services into operational delivery, ensuring all stakeholders fully understand the service model, obligations, and customer commitments, and providing guidance to resolve any ambiguities or gaps.
• Act as a trusted advisor and service design subject matter expert, influencing stakeholders to make decisions that balance customer needs, operational capability, and commercial viability.
• Participate in continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to enhance service offerings, standardise processes, optimise documentation, and improve the overall quality, efficiency, and consistency of service delivery.
• Work with internal SMEs, Operations, Legal, Commercial, Delivery Practice Leads, Sales, Account Managers and Delivery Teams ensuring service designs are accurate, realistic, and deliverable.
• Lead and coordinate with the Transition Team to ensure the seamless onboarding of successful Managed Services awards into operational support.
• Take full accountability for the handover process, ensuring all service artefacts, commitments, and operational requirements are clearly documented, understood, and implemented.

Innovation & Continuous Improvement:

• Promote a culture of innovation by encouraging colleagues and stakeholders to contribute ideas and solutions that improve services, processes, and the overall customer experience.
• Continuously refine service standards, templates, processes, and documentation to improve efficiency, clarity, consistency, and operational effectiveness, ensuring changes deliver measurable value.
• Monitor evolving market trends, emerging customer needs, and industry best practices in Managed Services, benchmarking offerings against competitors and proactively recommending enhancements, new services, or process improvements to strengthen the overall service portfolio.
• Identify opportunities to leverage technology, automation, and digital tools to streamline processes, enhance service delivery, and increase efficiency.
• Drive innovation and continuous improvement, aligning initiatives with organisational strategy and customer outcomes while identifying new approaches, tools, or models that differentiate the offering and enhance value.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Significant experience (5+ years) in Service Design, Presales Architecture, or Managed Services design within a technology services, MSP, or consultancy environment, including developing repeatable, standardised service offerings for scale and efficiency.
• ITIL 4 Managing Professional accreditation, or at least five years’ experience operating within an ITIL aligned service management function with demonstrable application of service management practices.
• Demonstrable experience producing high-quality bid, tender, and service response documentation, translating technical solutions into customer-facing service models and value propositions.
• Strong understanding of operational service delivery, ITIL-based service models, SLAs/OLAs, managed service lifecycle principles, and how to align ITIL practices with service design, bid responses, and operational models for Managed Services.
• Solid understanding of customer requirements including service availability, transparency, security, governance, support, and business continuity.
• Excellent commercial awareness with experience contributing to cost models, evaluating risks and assumptions, and supporting the creation of commercially sound proposals.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, able to collaborate effectively across Sales, Delivery, Product, Operations, and Executive teams.