Service Design Associate Manager

About Accenture Song: Accenture Song accelerates growth and value for our clients through sustained customer relevance. Our capabilities span ideation to execution: growth, product and experience design; technology and experience platforms; creative, media and marketing strategy; and campaign, content and channel orchestration. With strong client relationships and deep industry expertise, we help our clients operate at the speed of life through the unlimited potential of imagination, technology and intelligence. Role summary: As a Service Design Associate Manager, you will lead the design and improvement of complex end-to-end digital products and services. You will bring deep service design craft expertise, human-centred design, and systems thinking to make sense of complexity, shape service strategy and turn insight into meaningful outcomes for users and organisations. You will see service design as more than a method for improving existing experiences. You will use it as a reinvention tool to rethink service models, shape product and service vision, and explore new ways for organisations and customers to interact. You will take ownership of service design quality and delivery, working across multidisciplinary teams and influencing stakeholders to make confident, evidence-based decisions. You will also support the development of other designers and be open to using AI-enabled tools to enhance the design workflow and produce high-quality outputs. What you’ll be working on: You will lead service design across complex digital products, services and programmes within the Accenture Song Design Digital Products Creative team, from research and discovery through to design and delivery. Your work may span a range of industries, including Health & Public Services, financial services, telecommunications, retail, utilities and resources, automotive and life sciences. You will work across end-to-end services, connecting user experience with organisational, operational and business needs. You will be improving an existing service, shaping a new service proposition or helping clients imagine entirely new service models and customer experiences. What you’ll do: Understand and shape complex services: Apply deep service design, human-centred design and systems thinking expertise to understand users, organisations and complex service ecosystems. Translate research, data and other evidence into clear insights, strategic opportunities and service direction. Navigate ambiguity and complexity, creating clarity and helping teams make confident design decisions. Connect user needs, organisational context and business objectives to shape coherent end-to-end services. Challenge existing assumptions and use service design to explore new propositions, service models and future experiences. Help shape the why of a product or service by contributing to its vision, strategy and value proposition, as well as defining how it should work. Lead service design craft and quality: Lead the creation of high-quality service design artefacts, including journey maps, service blueprints, systems maps, personas and opportunity frameworks. Evolve and apply service design methods, prototyping approaches and frameworks to meet complex project needs and ambitious business questions. Lead the development and testing of service concepts and prototypes to build alignment, reduce risk and inform decision making. Translate service design work into actionable recommendations, service strategy and measurable outcomes. Use service design outputs not simply to document services, but to provoke thinking, shape vision and influence strategic decisions. Take ownership of service design quality, providing design critique and quality assurance across workstreams and teams. Explore and use AI-enabled tools, where appropriate, to enhance synthesis, ideation, prototyping and design outputs while maintaining strong design governance, design judgement and quality assurance. Facilitate, influence and collaborate: Plan and lead co-design, ideation and strategic service design workshops with users, senior stakeholders and multidisciplinary teams. Influence stakeholders and build buy-in for service design recommendations within complex programmes. Be a compelling storyteller, bringing together evidence, emotion, empathy and clarity to make complex service ideas meaningful and memorable. Communicate complex service design thinking clearly, both verbally and visually, to senior client and internal stakeholders. Build narratives that connect user needs, business opportunities and service vision, helping stakeholders understand both why change is needed and what the future could look like. Collaborate across user research, product, content, strategy, business design, data, engineering and other design disciplines. Build alignment across teams and help resolve competing user, business and delivery priorities. Lead delivery: Connect strategic service intent with practical delivery, ensuring the vision remains coherent as products and services evolve. Own and lead service design workstreams or design projects from planning through to delivery. Plan design activities, resources and priorities to deliver high-quality outcomes within project timelines. Coordinate service design across multiple teams or areas of a complex end-to-end service. Identify design risks, dependencies and opportunities and work with delivery teams to address them. Maintain a clear view of service outcomes while balancing user needs, business objectives and delivery constraints. How you’ll contribute: Advocate confidently for service design as both a user-centred practice and a tool for business and service reinvention. Provide craft leadership, mentoring and constructive critique to designers. Line manage and support designers in their performance, development and career growth where required. Help shape and improve service design capability, methods and standards across the wider design community. Encourage teams to challenge assumptions, explore possibilities and think beyond incremental service improvement. Share emerging approaches and tools, including AI, to improve the quality and efficiency of design practice. Contribute to a strong, collaborative design culture and support designers to develop their craft. Contribute to business development, bringing service design thinking, storytelling and future-focused ideas into client conversations, pitches and proposals. What we’re looking for: Deep expertise in service design, systems thinking and human-centred design. Strong experience designing complex end-to-end services across multiple touchpoints, teams or organisational boundaries. Ability to use service design strategically to shape product and service vision, propositions and future service models. Curiosity and imagination to challenge existing models and explore new ways organisations can create value for users and customers. Strong ownership of service design craft and the ability to assure the quality of design work. Ability to think strategically and connect design decisions with user, organisational and business outcomes. Confidence influencing senior stakeholders and building alignment in complex environments. Strong facilitation, storytelling and written, verbal and visual communication skills. Experience planning and leading design workstreams or projects. Experience mentoring, coaching or line managing designers. Collaborative leadership and confidence working across multidisciplinary teams. Curiosity and willingness to adopt AI-enabled tools while applying critical thinking and maintaining quality. Interest or experience in adjacent design disciplines, such as systems thinking, organisational design, business design, behaviour change or futures design, would be an advantage. Experience: Typically 5–8 years of relevant experience, including significant experience in service design. Track record of leading service design within complex projects, programmes or end-to-end services. Experience shaping service or product strategy and translating service design insight into strategic and delivery decisions. Experience influencing senior stakeholders and translating service design insight into strategic and delivery decisions. Experience leading or managing designers and supporting the development of others. Experience contributing to client-facing business development, pitches or proposals is desirable. Degree in Service Design, Design, Social Science or a related field, or equivalent professional experience. Portfolio requirement: Please include a link to a PDF or website of your service design work, and ensure it is clearly referenced in your CV. Your portfolio should clearly demonstrate your service design experience, the quality of your craft and the thinking behind your decisions What's in it for You: In addition to a competitive salary package, you will benefit from an extensive rewards offering including 25 days' annual leave, private medical insurance, and 3 additional days' leave per year for charitable work of your choice. Flexibility and mobility are required to deliver this role. There will be a requirement to spend meaningful time on-site with clients, partners, and teams to enable delivery of the first-class experiences we are known for. Some clients require background checks. You will need to complete a Baseline Personal Security Standard (BPSS) to confirm your identity, criminal record, right to work and residency. Comfortable with hybrid working. Every project is different, but we love our team to be in the studio and in our client's office to work collaboratively. Accenture is an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. About Accenture: Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Equal Employment Opportunity Statement: We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by applicable law. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative, more competitive, and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities.