Design Leadership Jobs in United Kingdom
Find your next Design Leadership role at companies that value creative talent
Showing 136 jobs
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 Guildford, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
Galliford Try 🇬🇧 Guildford, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will lead the design process and manage relationships with clients, subcontractors, and project teams to ensure efficient delivery. They are responsible for identifying design risks, monitoring compliance with CDM 2015, and managing statutory processes like Planning and BREEAM.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
Volkerwessels Uk 🇬🇧 Birmingham, England, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will serve as the principal point of contact for design aspects of tenders and current projects within the Aviation business. They are responsible for leading and providing a professional, comprehensive, and sustainable design service throughout the bid and delivery stages.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Pewsey, Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom
Tiptopjob 🇬🇧 Pewsey, Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom
The Design Manager will lead the design process from pre-construction to site completion, acting as the primary link between clients, consultants, and the project team. Responsibilities include managing design deliverables, ensuring buildability and cost-effectiveness, and maintaining compliance with statutory requirements.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 Stockton-on-Tees, England, United Kingdom
Tilbury Douglas 🇬🇧 Stockton-on-Tees, England, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will provide strategic leadership for design functions on complex construction projects from tender to completion. They are responsible for managing consultants, driving design excellence, and ensuring projects meet commercial, safety, and compliance objectives.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 Chester, Cheshire West and Chester, England, United Kingdom
Watkin Jones Group 🇬🇧 Chester, Cheshire West and Chester, England, United Kingdom
You will coordinate design deliverables across multiple disciplines and manage the design process from concept through to delivery. This involves ensuring compliance with scopes, identifying value engineering opportunities, and supporting sustainability initiatives.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Bw: Workplace Experts 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will lead the design and technical management process across multiple projects from inception through to completion. They are responsible for coordinating consultants and subcontractors, managing tender bids, and ensuring technical compliance and quality control.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 West Midlands, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom
Volkerwessels Uk 🇬🇧 West Midlands, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will serve as the principal point of contact for managing design aspects of tenders and active projects. They are responsible for leading the design service throughout both the bid and delivery stages to ensure professional and sustainable outcomes.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Steyning, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
Hill Mcglynn Recruitment 🇬🇧 Steyning, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
The Design Manager is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the design process from pre-construction through to project completion. This includes managing consultants, subcontractors, and internal teams to ensure designs are compliant, coordinated, and delivered on schedule.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Hill Mcglynn Recruitment 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Design Manager will oversee and coordinate the design process from pre-construction through to project completion. They will manage design programmes, resolve technical clashes, and ensure all designs comply with building regulations and project requirements.
Security Design Manager - Stations
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Hs2 (high Speed Two) Ltd 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Security Design Manager will lead the security interface between the HS2 Railway Directorate and the supply chain to produce compliant security design deliverables. They will provide subject matter expert support to project teams and ensure all designs align with HMG standards and UK legislation.
Framework Engineering & Design Manager
🇬🇧 West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
Costain Group Plc 🇬🇧 West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
The role involves leading engineering design and assurance across the entire project lifecycle for Gatwick airport infrastructure frameworks. You will manage a multidisciplinary team, oversee design compliance, and ensure all works are delivered safely, on time, and within budget.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
Wates Group 🇬🇧 Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom
Lead and coordinate the design process for residential construction projects from tender through to completion. Manage consultants, subcontractors, and design information to ensure buildability, compliance, and commercial viability.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 England, United Kingdom
Skanska 🇬🇧 England, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will lead the design process and team from the initial bid and PCSA stages through to construction, completion, and handover. They are responsible for managing design contracts, ensuring compliance with cost, time, quality, and safety standards, and overseeing the delivery of design deliverables.
Service Design Manager
🇬🇧 Redhill, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
Gattaca 🇬🇧 Redhill, Surrey, England, United Kingdom
The Service Design Manager is responsible for defining and implementing service design and transition strategies for large-scale IT programmes. They lead end-to-end service design activities, ensuring processes, governance, and operational readiness are maintained throughout the service lifecycle.
Assistant Design Manager
🇬🇧 Coventry, England, United Kingdom
Psr Solutions 🇬🇧 Coventry, England, United Kingdom
The Assistant Design Manager will oversee design processes during pre-construction and construction phases to ensure projects are delivered safely, on time, and within budget. They are responsible for coordinating external design consultants and collaborating with internal teams to develop comprehensive contractor proposals.
About Design Leadership careers
Design leaders in 2026 set the strategic vision for design organizations navigating an AI-saturated market. This role requires a balance of craft expertise and high-level business acumen to advocate for design's value at the executive level.
Effective leaders foster a culture of technical agency, establishing systems that allow human creativity and machine efficiency to coexist.
Companies like Stripe and Airbnb seek VPs and Directors of Design who can scale teams and align design strategy with long-term business objectives.
We feature senior leadership positions including Design Directors, Heads of Design, VP of Design, Chief Design Officers, and design team leads at companies like Meta, Google, Airbnb, Stripe, and fast-growing AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. These roles span product design, brand, and cross-functional design organizations.
Many companies offer remote design leadership roles, including distributed-first companies like Notion, Linear, GitLab, and Vercel. AI companies like Midjourney and Anthropic also hire remote design leaders. Some companies prefer hybrid arrangements for VP+ positions.
Most positions require 8–15+ years of design experience with 3–5+ years managing teams. Strong candidates demonstrate strategic thinking, team building, stakeholder management, and a track record of shipping successful products at companies like Figma, Spotify, Netflix, or emerging AI startups. Browse leadership portfolios to see how experienced designers showcase their impact.
Design leadership salaries are highly competitive: Design Directors earn $160k–$240k, VPs of Design $220k–$350k+, and CDOs at major companies can exceed $400k with significant equity packages. AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks often offer premium total compensation. Consult our salary guide for detailed breakdowns.