Make a difference. Design and improve services and products through continuous improvement.
At Rethink Mental Illness, we’re working to become a lean organisation, with continuous improvement embedded in how we work every day. We are looking for a Service Design Manager to join our Planning & Improvement team where you’ll help lead improvements in how we design and deliver services and products.
The Business Improvement & Technology directorate was formed in January 2026, bringing together Technology & Business Systems with Compliance, Quality, Audit and PMO. This new directorate has an exciting purpose to drive real, meaningful change across the organisation. It will play a key role in improving how we work, maintaining compliance, shaping and strengthening our technology, systems, and data to deliver quality services, demonstrate our impact and enable strategic planning & delivery.
What you’ll be doing
- Lead service design and process improvement projects from discovery through to design and optimisation
- Embed user-centred design grounded in insight, co-design and evidence based decision making.
- Identify improvement opportunities using data, performance metrics and user feedback
- Facilitate workshops, ideation sessions and re-design processes
- Develop process maps, personas, journeys and design artefacts
- Oversee the production of documentation ensuring alignment to organisational architecture and delivery frameworks.
- Ensure compliance with organisational policies and regulatory requirements.
- Align service design with organisational goals, user needs and technical feasibility
- Embed design principles and continuous improvement practices across teams
- Work closely with stakeholders to influence, challenge and drive sustainable change
- Mentor and coach and support colleagues in the team, building capability in service design and improvement
- Monitor, test and refine solutions to ensure real impact
- Establish feedback loops, monitoring and performance measures.
What you’ll bring
Essential experience
- Experienced in designing services and products over the full design lifecycle.
- Experienced project manager, ideally skilled in agile and waterfall methodologies.
- Understand user research principles, personas, journey mapping, co-design and accessibility.
- Skilled in end-to-end service mapping and identifying interdependencies.
- Ability to understand complex systems and design services that work across teams and channels.
- Ability to build strong stakeholder relationships across differing levels in Rethink Mental Illness including influencing and negotiating to achieve sustainable improvements.
- Knowledge of Lean or continuous improvement methodologies
- Skilled in data analysis, interpreting complex data into clear and actionable insight.
- Experienced in identifying inefficiencies and redesigning processes for quality, efficiency and user experience.
- Ability to champion change, bring others on the change journey through understanding needs and engaging effectively.
- Ability to prioritise challenges, frame problems and design strategic solutions.
- Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in written form.
Desirable
- Experience of using Lean methodologies.
- Experienced in facilitating and coaching others.
- Experience in developing technology-based products.
- Experience in user research.
Why join us?
At Rethink Mental Illness, we know that when people feel supported, they do their best work. That’s why we offer a range of benefits designed to help you thrive:
- Wellbeing support including EAP and mental health tools
- Inclusive culture with active staff networks
- Recognition & rewards through discounts and internal platforms
- Generous leave – 25 days + bank holidays + your birthday off
- Learning & development to support your growth
- Family & financial support including pension and enhanced leave
- Travel benefits like cycle-to-work and season ticket loans
- Referral bonus up to £300
Our commitment to inclusion
We’re proud to be building a diverse, inclusive and anti-racist organisation. We actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds—especially those with lived experience of mental illness and individuals from underrepresented communities.
We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels heard, valued and able to belong.
Ready to apply?
If you’re passionate about designing better services—and want to use your skills to make a real difference—we’d love to hear from you.
Apply today and help us rethink mental illness.
Interviews are expected to be held Monday 22nd or Wednesday 24 June
Why Work With Rethink Mental Illness?
At Rethink Mental Illness, we believe that when you feel supported, you can make the biggest difference. That’s why we offer a range of benefits to help you thrive:
- Inclusive Culture: Join staff networks that champion diversity and inclusion.
- Wellbeing Support: Access our Wellbeing Hub, Employee Assistance Programme, and the Unmind mental health app.
- Recognition & Rewards: Enjoy discounts, cashback offers, and celebrate achievements through our PULSE platform.
- Flexible Working & Generous Leave: Starting at 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays and your birthday off), with options to buy or sell extra days.
- Learning & Development: Grow your career with structured onboarding and training opportunities.
- Financial & Family Support: Contributory pension scheme, enhanced family leave, and travel benefits like season ticket loans and cycle-to-work schemes.
- Referral Bonus: Earn up to £300 for introducing someone to our team.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Diversity is important to us, and we appreciate difference through difference, inclusiveness and belonging. It gives us a deeper understanding of the world, our society and the diverse communities we’re working with. By including everyone, we are able to draw on the unique experiences and expertise of our people to help shape and enrich our workplace and improve our services. One way we are doing is through our valued staff networks which play a critical and highly valued role in keeping us focused on creating a diverse, inclusive and engaged employer. We recognise and support staff networks and support groups for our ethnically diverse and LGBTQIA+ colleagues. We are also proud to have been awarded Disability Confident Employer status and are a signatory to the Business in the Community Race at Work Charter.
We aim for our workforce to reflect the diversity of the communities we serve; for those who work for us to feel heard, valued and feel they belong; and for our work to help tackle wider mental health inequalities. We therefore actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including applicants with lived experience of mental illness, those who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual and any other gender identity not expressed here (LGBTQIA+); people who are neurodiverse, have a health condition, or a disability or hidden disability and people from an ethnically diverse background - regardless of your age, religious or spiritual belief, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, political view or socio-economic status.
Becoming a truly anti-racist organisation
We have an ambition of become a truly anti-racist employer, campaigning organisation and service provider - and in our efforts to influence policy and wider societal factors impacting on mental health set out in our anti-racist statement . We have designed a multi-year anti-racist programme of work contained in our Race Equality Action Plan which demonstrates our intention to hold ourselves accountable and be judged on our progress on becoming a truly anti-racist organisation.
