Early Years Design Lead EYDL1025

• Location
• Leeds or London
• Salary
• £55,000
• Application Deadline
• Sunday, November 2, 2025
• BookTrust

• BookTrust is the UK’s largest children’s reading charity. We know that children who read are happier, healthier, more empathetic, and more creative. They also do better at school.

  Working with every local authority and across every region in the country, and supported by Arts Council funding, we reach over 3 million families a year via partners in schools, children’s centres, health visitors and libraries. This incredible network helps us to get children reading across the country.

  To apply please complete the application along with a copy of your CV and covering letter showing how you meet the person specification and your motivations for applying for the role. Your covering letter should not be longer than two sides.

  Want to join us? Find out more about who we are at:

  https://www.booktrust.org.uk/about-us/work-at-booktrust/
• Job Summary

• We’re looking for a great Early Years Design Lead to drive the design and development of our Early Years proposition. The post-holder will enhance the moments with most potential in our partner journey to create greater impact for families. Working most closely with our Partnerships team and our Research and Impact team and collaborating across the organisation, the postholder will reimagine our existing service journeys and define and activate new service or product improvements that drive loyalty, advocacy and deepen relationships with our key delivery partners.

  Working within the Design and Innovation Team, the post-holder will be an agent of change in the organisation, turning partner experience strategy into action. In collaboration with peers and colleagues inside and outside the team, as well as BookTrust’s SLT, the Early Years Design Lead will re-imagine our proposition for partners and families and deliver tangible change to the lives of children who most need support.

  The role will be varied - it might involve the oversight and strategic planning of our group storytelling pilot, developing our partner training capability, re-imagining our digital support for partners or packaging our development work up for a specific funding bid application.

  Reports to: Head of Design and InnovationLine Reports: (1-2) Designer, Product and Service DevelopmentSalary: up to £55KObjectives and Deliverables:

  • Define our future delivery partner service journey to identify and deliver priority enhancements that make the most of our physical and digital touchpoints with partners – working closely with our Partnerships Team.

  • Extend our core service/product portfolio to deepen impact e.g. designing supplementary support for children with particular needs, reimagining group storytelling support, e-learning and partner training.

  • Work with Head of Innovation, Design and Development to define our ‘continuous improvement cycle’ for at scale products and services - when and how we iterate and evolve existing designs in a way that is sustainable for the organisation.

  • Support the definition and management of our organisational development plan including managing budgets for prioritised development work.

  • Support funding bid development.

  • Coach and support more junior designers/line reports to nurture BookTrust’s in-house service design capability.

  Would suit someone who:

  • Has practical experience of leading the development and optimisation of existing products and services, using design thinking /human centered design approaches.

  • Has worked in or with an operationally complex organisation/business and is adept at balancing different perspectives and designing to meet a variety of ‘business needs’ as well as user needs.

  • Has experience of defining and delivering new digital experiences in the context of complex ‘offline’ journeys, products and services, and can combine on-line and offline touchpoints for maximum impact.

  • Can take a practical approach as well as think strategically, likes a job that involves getting hands dirty as well as doing the hard thinking.

  • Has a track record of managing development pipelines/roadmaps and can work within existing governance structures to ensure decision making happens at the right levels.

  • Understands and demonstrates great design leadership.

  • Is excited by joining a changing team and transforming organisation.

  • Knows that brilliant collaboration is at the heart of design.

• Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusivity

• We aim to provide an inclusive recruitment process and actively welcome applications from diverse talent pools: minority ethnic candidates, candidates with disabilities and long-term conditions and candidates from underrepresented communities.

  We are committed to equality of opportunity and want to ensure we have an accessible application process for all candidates. If you need any reasonable adjustments or would like us to do anything differently during the application process, please contact our HR team on

  HR@booktrust.org.ukto discuss your requirements further.

  BookTrust is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. The recruitment and selection process reflect our commitment to safeguarding therefore, the suitability of all prospective employees will be assessed during the recruitment process in line with this commitment, and pre-employment checks.

• Job Profile
• Job Profile document