London, UK
Senior service designer
at Arup
Arup is recruiting a senior service designer to join its team in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh or Manchester, UK.
Why Arup?
Are you passionate about building a more sustainable future? At Arup we work to find solutions for some of the world’s most complex problems – providing expertise across all the areas for the built environment from strategic approach and planning to design and engineering. Studio is our strategic design and user experience team within Arup. Our core aim is bringing people to the core of the design process in order to shape a more sustainable, human-centred built environment through creative and innovative design solutions
Don’t take our word for it, here’s what some of our people have to say…
“Since joining the studio team my confidence as a designer has grown, I feel supported to do my best work and enabled by a group of diverse mindsets to be a better designer.” – Associate, strategic designer.
The role
Arup Studio is looking for a senior service designer interested in thinking strategically to re-imagine the world around us, using participatory research and holistic design approaches to solve complex challenges. Our approach to problem solving reframes complex challenges of the built environment around human needs looking at the interaction between people, places and technology. The propositions we come up with are designed for maximum impact to all stakeholders’ needs, and are of diverse nature including actionable frameworks, interactive digital outputs, user experience designs, or innovative service propositions.
Have a look at some of our recent work.
Being a multidisciplinary team, we combine expertise in service, interaction and speculative design; user research, strategy, storytelling, architecture and technology to deliver services to our clients. We ground the ideas we deliver in participatory research and make ideas tangible through concept design, prototyping and user testing. Designers collaborate closely with other Arup disciplines and domain experts, each project is a new opportunity to learn how each specialism adds value to a final proposition aiming to solve complex agendas of our built environment.
The studio operates across a range of sectors, working with city governments, local councils, developers, universities, cultural institutions, tech companies and infrastructure providers. We have worked with clients such as Google, British Land, Defra, Environment Agency, University of Melbourne, Victoria and Albert Museum, Alphabet, Highways England, and city governments in Amsterdam, Stockholm and Sheffield, amongst others. We also collaborate with academic partners such as the Bartlett School of Architecture at UCL, RMIT University in Melbourne and the Royal College of Art.
The opportunity
Service designers are important to the studio’s process and take a considerable share of responsibility for the success of our work. An ideal candidate will take part in the following activities:
Manage multidisciplinary project teams to design the end-to-end journey of new services (online/offline) that will positively impact on people, bring value to the client’s organisation and solve wider strategic social or environmental goals. Incorporating creativity and imagination into our projects. The ideal candidate will be open to learning new design methodologies and inventing new approaches tailored to meet our clients’ needs
Lead the project team through the different stages—this includes; bidding process, shaping project scopes, conducting research activities to generate understanding of spatial, environmental and social challenges and inform design work; framing strategic service propositions and develop end-to-end user journeys through digital/offline design concept generation. Planning and executing co-creation sessions with stakeholders and end users. Using research insights and data to inform design decisions. Prototyping end-to-end services or service components, and testing these with stakeholders, communities and future users. And design compelling service blueprints, communicate design solutions effectively and influence key stakeholders of different design directions.
You should apply for the role if:
- demonstrated success in delivering research-grounded innovative services, user experiences and products through a critical perspective, around a clear vision and communicating them in a visual manner
- understanding a complex landscape of services/experiences and products and mapping these out to identify gaps and opportunities
- being aware of the strategic context of your work, including how it fits within the wider social and environmental challenges and organisational needs and strategies
- lead multidisciplinary project teams and engage clients through the project journey. Work with large and complex client organisations to help them to enhance their user experiences, reposition their services and inform their decision making around people, process and technology
Qualifications
Candidates should hold a degree in a relevant field from an accredited institution or be working toward Chartered status with a recognised organisation.
Rewards and benefits
We care about you and want you to perform at your best, which is why we offer one of the most competitive benefits packages in our sector.
As a member organisation, everyone shares in our success through a global profit share scheme (payments are dependent on the firm’s financial performance).
We also provide private medical insurance, life assurance, accident insurance and Income protection cover. In addition, you’ll have access to flexible benefits to help you look after all aspects of your wellbeing and give you the freedom and flexibility to find the best solutions for you, your family and your individual needs.
Different people, shared values.
At Arup, we believe when talented people collaborate, great things are possible. Arup hires people with proven skills and open minds. We are taking deliberate action to create an inclusive culture that is grounded in our purpose to shape a better world.
At Arup, we welcome candidates from all backgrounds, regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background and any other protected characteristic. Our internal employee networks – BAME, culture, disability, LGBTQ+ and women – provide a space for you to express your views and to make a positive difference.
At Arup, we are committed to making all stages of our recruitment process accessible to candidates with disabilities. Please speak to our recruitment team and we will work with you to make reasonable adjustments to ensure you can perform at your best throughout your application.
At Arup, we appreciate that everyone’s circumstances are different and having the freedom to flex the way we work is essential to our wellbeing. If flexibility matters to you let us know when you apply and we will discuss how this could work in your role.
Interested in this position?
Click this link to apply through our careers page.
Our application process
To understand what to expect next, please visit our UK application process page.
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