Design Leadership Jobs in United Kingdom
Find your next Design Leadership role at companies that value creative talent
Showing 116 jobs
Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Jacobs 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Coordinate multidisciplinary detailed design activities for water and wastewater infrastructure to ensure they are safe, buildable, and effective. Manage design packages, technical interfaces, and assurance requirements while collaborating with construction and commissioning teams.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom
Jacobs 🇬🇧 Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, United Kingdom
Coordinate multidisciplinary detailed design activities for water and wastewater infrastructure to ensure they are safe, buildable, and effective. Manage design packages, technical interfaces, and assurance requirements while collaborating with construction and commissioning teams.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Belfast City District, Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Jacobs 🇬🇧 Belfast City District, Antrim, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Coordinate multidisciplinary detailed design activities for water and wastewater infrastructure projects to ensure they are safe, buildable, and effective. Manage design packages, technical interfaces, and assurance requirements while collaborating with construction and commissioning teams.
Senior Design Manager (m/f/d)
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Equinix 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager leads the design process for a portfolio of datacenter projects, ensuring technical excellence and mission-critical resilience. They manage relationships with design partners and equipment suppliers while overseeing design schedules and budgets.
Senior Product Designer
🇬🇧 City of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Mcfall Recruitment Limited 🇬🇧 City of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
The role involves designing and building intuitive experiences for complex HR processes by bridging the gap between People, Technology, and Operations. Responsibilities include mapping user journeys, prototyping solutions, and driving the delivery of product improvements from discovery to adoption.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 Horsham, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
Skilled Careers 🇬🇧 Horsham, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom
Manage the design process to deliver technically compliant and cost-efficient design packages from pre-construction through project delivery. Coordinate with subcontractors and consultants to ensure compliance with Building Regulations and statutory requirements.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Built 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager bridges the gap between design intent and construction reality by guiding the flow of design information and coordinating between clients, consultants, and delivery teams. They are responsible for ensuring design milestones align with procurement and construction schedules while reviewing documentation for quality, cost, and buildability.
Senior Product & Design Manager - Mitre
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Pentland Brands 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Lead the long-term product and design strategy for the Mitre brand while translating consumer insights into innovative product ranges. Manage the end-to-end product creation process, including design briefs, critical paths, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure market readiness.
Renewables Design Manager
🇬🇧 Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom
Galliford Try 🇬🇧 Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom
The Renewables Design Manager will lead design activities for projects ranging from £0.5m to £5m, ensuring efficient development and delivery from award to completion. They will manage relationships with clients and subcontractors while ensuring compliance with CDM 2015 and project safety standards.
Senior Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Built Australia 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
The Senior Design Manager will lead design coordination across consultants and stakeholders to ensure project milestones align with construction and procurement needs. They are responsible for reviewing documentation for quality, compliance, and buildability while translating client requirements into actionable design pathways.
Design Manager (OHL)
🇬🇧 Motherwell, ML1 1RB, United Kingdom
Morgan Sindall Infrastructure 🇬🇧 Motherwell, ML1 1RB, United Kingdom
Lead and coordinate all design activities for major overhead line infrastructure from the bid stage through to project completion. Ensure that design solutions are safe, compliant, commercially viable, and fully integrated across multidisciplinary teams.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Murphy 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Lead the engineering design delivery for major HV substation new build and extension projects, integrating multiple disciplines from internal and external designers. Act as the Principal Design Representative to ensure compliance with CDM 2015 regulations and manage design consultant contracts and payments.
Design Manager
🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Wps 🇬🇧 City of London, London, United Kingdom
Manage and coordinate the design process throughout the project lifecycle for commercial construction projects. Liaise with consultants and internal teams to ensure accurate design delivery and resolve technical issues before site delivery.
Design Manager - Edinburgh
🇬🇧 City of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Graham Group 🇬🇧 City of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Lead and coordinate multidisciplinary design teams from tender stage through to project completion for mixed-use residential developments. Manage external consultants, ensure compliance with budgets and quality standards, and optimize buildability and project efficiency.
Design Manager - Glasgow
🇬🇧 Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom
Graham Group 🇬🇧 Glasgow, Glasgow City, Scotland, United Kingdom
Manage the design process from concept to completion, coordinating external consultants and multidisciplinary teams to deliver cost-effective solutions. Ensure compliance with budgets, programmes, and quality standards while managing technical queries and statutory approvals.
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.