Service Strategy and Design Lead

Job title: Service Strategy and Design Lead

Salary: £60-65k                                      
Grade: 3

Contract type: TfL                                                     Reference: (SF job reference)

Contract details: FTC – 24 months                           Location: North Greenwich, London

Application closing date: 12/4/2026 at 23:59

External - All offers of employment are subject to satisfactory right‑to‑work checks.  Candidates must be able to demonstrate their right to work in the UK.  At the present time TfL is unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.  

*Hybrid working within this role enables a balance of 50 per cent of time split between the office and home over a 4-week period. Hybrid working arrangements can evolve subject to business requirements.

Overview of project/role 

To develop the business service requirements for new and existing services ensuring accurate assessment of customer requirements, service model creation and design of service level agreements.

The role holder will support the Programme and Technology Delivery teams throughout the design and transition process including production of service models and service designs. The role holder will ensure service designs align with the T&D strategy and emerging technologies to deliver business outcomes in a cost effective and efficient manner throughout the respective life cycle of those services.

Key Accountabilities

• To develop and deliver service requirements for new and existing services that can be clearly translated into contractual terms to achieve cost effective delivery of business outcomes in line with agreed T&D strategies.
• To produce and maintain the service design principles that support the creation of end-to-end service designs to enable the successful transition of services into live operations.
• To produce and deliver service design packages (SDPs) for services within the agreed targets, ensuring alignment to relevant standards, policies, design principles, and business operating model architectures, to enable the successful transition of services into live operations.
• To effectively plan, prioritise and coordinate continuous service improvement initiatives across a portfolio of services, maintaining a holistic view of services via the service catalogue, and proposing relevant consolidation of services in order to deliver cost efficiencies.
• To develop key processes, reflecting industry best practice, that generate sufficient controls to ensure compliance with all relevant standards and policies and ensure consistent implementation across TfL.
• To produce and deliver service roadmaps and ensure relevant stakeholder input is achieved to facilitate optimal delivery of services and realise improvements and cost efficiencies.
• To elicit and shape strategic service requirements with relevant business stakeholders for their respective services and capture demand in order to successfully resource and support TSO teams.
• To Input into executive papers for key decision making in the delivery of business-critical services to ensure informed business decisions can be taken in alignment with T&D strategies.
• To produce and maintain the service design principles that support the creation of end-to-end service designs and embed these into the T&D Project Gateway Processes to enable the successful development and transition of services into live operations.

Knowledge 

• A University Degree in the relevant technology/computer science subject/equivalent technical qualification or demonstrable professional experience.
• IT Service Management qualifications required, such as ITIL and its practical operation in large organisations.
• Knowledge of cloud computing service models, such as SaaS, PaaS, IaaS.
• Broad knowledge of all Technology and Data Services, including the operating businesses.
• Knowledge of relevant national and international legislation pertaining to the Government/Public Sector IT – e.g. Data Protection Act, EU Procurement Directives and Freedom of Information Act.
• Knowledge of current/emerging technologies and processes employed in designing and delivering Enterprise Wide IT services.

Skills 

• Excellent communication skills with ability to articulate clear messages via written, oral and design artefacts.
• Proven ability to influence at a senior leader level, both internally and with third parties
• Able to systematically define and implement service strategies.
• Able to produce informed design principles and communicate these coherently to a wide variety of specialisms.
• High adept analytics skills with the ability to deliver clear design and strategy artefact's based on a wide array of information sources.
• Skilled at translating design principles into contractual agreements and requirements.

Experience 

• Experience in delivering a wide range of service strategies in a large, complex and operationally focused organisation.
• Experience in ERP (preferably SAP) systems and integrations
• Experience in delivering departmental savings through leading service efficiency and rationalisation activities.
• Broad experience in leading service operations changes at a strategic level, maturing operating models and instilling a continual improvement culture within a team of IT service specialists.
• Experience in delivering service design principles for organisationally critical services.
• Experienced in supporting and leading service design requirements in ICT procurements and assuring service schedule drafting in an associated Supplier Contracts

Application Process 

• Please apply using your CV only
• Think carefully about the skills, knowledge and experience in the advert and cover this in your CV
• PDF format preferred and do not include any photographs or images

Equality, diversity and inclusion

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. We want to represent the city we serve, which will help us become a more innovative and efficient organisation. Our goal is to make our recruitment as inclusive as possible. We are a disability confident employer who guarantee an interview to any disabled candidate who meets all of the essential criteria. We also use anonymising software that removes identifying information from CVs and cover letters to make the process fair.
  
Benefits

In return for your commitment and expertise, you will enjoy excellent benefits and scope to grow. Rewards vary according to the level of role but mostly include the below:

Final salary pension scheme 
Free travel for you on the TfL network 
Reimbursement of 75% of the cost of a standard class Ticket for National Rail travel from home
30 days annual leave plus public and bank holidays
TfL is committed to work-life balance, operating a hybrid working approach where business and role requirements allow
Private healthcare discounted scheme (optional)
Tax-efficient cycle-to-work programme
Retail, health, leisure and travel offers 
Discounted Eurostar travel