Design Manager; Interiors

This role exists because the organisation is laying foundations for something much bigger than a single project.

There is a clear ambition to modernise and standardise the physical environment across a large, multi-brand estate. Initial flagship sites are planned, but without strong design management in place now, future rollout risks becoming slow, expensive, and inconsistent.

Design needs ownership. This role provides it.

You would take responsibility for managing the end-to-end design process for a new generation of physical spaces. Not as a hands-on designer, but as the person who brings structure, consistency, and momentum to how design is delivered across multiple brands, stakeholders, and locations.

This is about building systems that work ating repeatable design frameworks, coordinating agencies and consultants, and ensuring that design decisions are made deliberately rather than reactively. Your work enables rollout to happen efficiently, without design becoming a bottleneck or a cost risk.

In the first few months, success looks like understanding the organisational landscape, clarifying who owns what, and aligning internal teams and external partners around a single design approach.

By six to nine months, flagship sites are delivered through a structured, repeatable process. Agency spend is more controlled, the in-house designer is supported effectively, and design decisions are coordinated rather than firefighting.

By a year in, design delivery is consistent and scalable, and the organisation is ready to move beyond pilots with confidence.

This role suits someone who brings order to complexity. You’ll need to be comfortable operating in a stakeholder-heavy, corporate environment, influencing without direct authority, and balancing speed, cost, and consistency. Strong organisation, calm decision-making, and the ability to translate strategy into buildable outcomes are essential.

It won’t suit everyone.

If you’re looking for a primarily hands-on design role, this will disappoint.

If you need a simple environment with few stakeholders, this will feel overwhelming.

And if ambiguity at pilot stage makes you uncomfortable, this role will be frustrating rather than rewarding.

What makes the role attractive for the right person is the scale of impact. You’re not just delivering one site or one brand. You’re shaping how physical design works across a national organisation, with visibility at senior levels and the opportunity to build a design system from first principles.

Creativity matters here, but governance matters more. This is a role for someone who enjoys making complex things work, not for someone chasing authorship.

If building structure where none yet exists sounds motivating, it’s worth a conversation.