Consultant (Service Design) RC082

Contract type/Duration: Permanent

W orking hours: Full Time 9 Day Fortnight working pattern

Band: 2.2

Salary: £41,555 - £54,171 (depending on office location and proven ability)

Reports to: Head of Regional and Local Growth Design and Analysis

Location: Milton Keynes, Birmingham or London (minimum of two days a week in the office. You can do more than two days if preferable)

Closing date: 20th of July 2026

The Role

Within Connected Places Catapult, our Design and Analysis team leads the strategic application of design, human insights and economics to create demonstrable outcomes. We use research, analysis and design to shape how we interact with each other, the places we live in, and the innovative organisations that drive change through their products and services.

We are looking for a brilliant consultant Service Designer to join our team. You will bring design thinking, service design and real-world testing methods to some of today’s most complex challenges in the built environment, cities, local economic growth and transport. You will have a strong design background and be able to apply service design principles to place-based challenges. You are committed to turning ideas into tangible outcomes that work for people and society. You are excited by experimentation, and by the opportunity to bring together design and technology in new and innovative ways.

You will have a keen interest in emerging technologies, along with hands-on experience in applying service design through prototyping, testing and the development of new approaches. You will work on a wide range of projects alongside engineers, data scientists, urban planners, analysts and user researchers. Experience of working in the built environment, including digital construction or BIM-related contexts, would be beneficial.

Your work will be varied and dynamic. One day you might support a local authority in designing new approaches to market engagement using testbeds and living labs. The next, you could be facilitating ideation workshops on the underpinning service design for carbon accounting, or developing innovative ways to run competitions that help grow new SMEs. If you are ready to use your design skills to make a meaningful impact on people, places and the planet, we would love to hear from you.

• Service design - Apply service design tools in multiple projects and translate (design) research into insights, design opportunities and eventually ideas and concepts. Qualification or experience in a design discipline (e.g. product design, service design, industrial design, strategic design) or equivalent.
• Design Research - Being able to independently perform qualitative design research, applying design ethnography using methods such as contextual interviews, observation, card sorting etc.
• Design of live trial environments – Creating methodologies and processes to determine how a variety of different solutions can be tested in the real world.
• Workshop design – Planning, design and delivery of different types of workshops that involve a variety of stakeholders within our established program of projects.
• Stakeholder management - Working closely with team members to ensure relationships with all project partners are managed successfully.