Service Designer

Job description & person specification

Title: Service Designer

Department: Digital

Reports to: Digital Innovation Lead

Job purpose summary:

We’re looking for an ambitious early-career Service Designer with a strong grounding in user research to join our Innovation Team. This role is ideal for someone with 1–2 years of experience who wants to work in a complex, real-world environment where research insights can directly influence passenger experience, operations, and future services. You will play a key role in shaping early‑stage concepts, validating customer needs, and informing innovation decisions through high‑quality research, design outputs, and product and service prototypes that bring ideas to life.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

User research and insight

  • Plan and conduct qualitative user research, including interviews, observations, contextual inquiry, and in-situ research within the airport environment.

  • Support lightweight quantitative research, e.g., surveys, intercepts, data synthesis, where appropriate.

  • Recruit participants and manage related logistics in live operational environments around the airport.

  • Synthesise research into clear, actionable insights and usable artefacts, including personas, journey maps, service maps, and experience principles.

Service Design

  • Map end-to-end passenger journeys, identifying pain points, moments of truth, and opportunity areas.

  • Contribute to service concepts, prototypes, and experiments, working alongside business stakeholders, partners, and operational teams.

  • Help document services through service blueprints, system maps, and related workflows.

  • Support pilots, trials, and tests, capturing learnings and iterating based on evidence.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

  • Work closely with colleagues across operations, digital, customer experience, and innovation.

  • Communicate research findings in a clear, engaging way, from informal memos to structured presentations.

  • Learn how to balance user needs, operational realities, and regulatory constraints.

  • Contribute to delivering a great guest experience by performing your role with accuracy and efficiency. Recognising that every task, whether guest-facing or behind the scenes, contributes to supporting the company’s overall LLA Way Strategy and service standards.

  • Proactively and positively promote the LLA Way initiatives and projects with all employees and the wider airport community.

Knowledge, skills, and experience required:

Essential

  • 1–2 years’ experience in service design, UX research, UX design, or a closely related field.
  • Demonstrated interest in mixed methods user research and evidence-led design.
  • Hands-on experience conducting qualitative research.
  • Ability to synthesise research into insights and practical recommendations.
  • Familiarity with core service design tools, methods, and frameworks.
  • Comfortable working in busy, real-world environments (not just desk research).
  • Understanding of accessibility and inclusive design.

Mindset

  • Systems thinker, as concerned with the drivers and enablers of user experience as well as the experience itself.
  • Able to explain the value of research and service design clearly and pragmatically to colleagues who are not from a design or research background.
  • Confident at engaging with stakeholders and disciplines within the team and across the business.
  • Comfortable with ambiguity and complexity.
  • Passionate about improving human experiences at scale.

Desirable

  • Experience in transport, travel, public services, or large-scale systems.
  • Exposure to pilot or product prototyping, experimentation, innovation, digital or transformation projects.
  • Work projects with agency partners and/or other third parties.

 

This job description is intended to give an appreciation of the role and the range of duties and responsibilities to be undertaken. It does not attempt to detail every activity. Specific tasks and objectives will be agreed on an ongoing basis. The post holder will be required at all times to perform any other reasonable tasks, as requested by the Line Manager, in order to meet the operational needs of the business.

For any further information, please contact the Human Resources department at [email protected]. London Luton Airport Operations Ltd collects your personal information when you submit your application. For more details about the personal information LLA collects, how we collect it, why we need it, what we do with it, how long we keep it, and what your rights are, please see our privacy notice at www.london-luton.co.uk/privacy-notice.

LLA is committed to fostering, promoting, and preserving a culture of diversity, equality, and inclusion as we carry out our mission. We will always be respectful and seek to learn from those different from ourselves. We strive to be an equal opportunity employer, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee has a negative experience for being who they are. We welcome all applications!

To apply:

If you wish to apply for this role, please send your CV that summarises your knowledge, skills, and experience within the context of the Service Designer job description to [email protected], using the reference SD2402 in the subject line. In the body of the email, please make sure to include the following:

  • Current and expected salary
  • Notice period/availability to start
  • Right to work in the UK / sponsorship requirements
  • Whether you are happy to travel to Luton three days a week