Snook are on a mission to design a world that works better for people. 

We work with organisations to design more effective services which help people thrive. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more. 

Snook started as a service design company in 2009. In the past five years, we have become a multidisciplinary team and scaled to more than double our original size, when we started up in Scotland. We are now based in Glasgow and London and our team is approaching 100 people. And we’ve worked with brilliant clients — from Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government. 

Location: UK, home and office working. This role will require some onsite working with clients and in our studios. London and Glasgow based staff are expected to regularly use our studios. For remote staff we have optional access to business lounges across the UK. 

Contract: Permanent 

Salary: £65,000+

Application deadline: 10th March

We’re looking for a Head of Learning Design to run the Snook Academy and develop user-centred design training programmes. 

This exciting role provides an opportunity to make a huge impact in driving design literacy in large scale organisations, including government, healthcare, and the third sector. 

The Snook Academy aims to help people push the boundaries of their knowledge and skills sets through a range of workshops and courses at literacy, fluency and mastery levels. 

You will work alongside the wider Snook team who are exemplars in their field to develop, shape and evolve our training offering. Your work will have a significant external impact amongst our clients and training customers, as well as internally with the Snook team and our parent company NEC.  

The Head of Learning Design will be responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of all training programmes for Snook.  

Currently the programmes consist of a set of external facing products sold to customers and small teams, internal training for organisations mainly within government & healthcare, and partnering with organisations like the Scottish Service Design Academy to design and deliver as part of their curriculum. This position will be responsible for the learning design team and work closely with Snook’s Senior Leadership Team to ensure that all training programmes align with the agency's overall goals and objectives. The post holder will be part of the Snook Senior Leadership Team and will report to the Managing Director. 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Ownership of the strategic direction of the Snook training offering, working alongside the Managing Director to develop and deliver on a vision for Snook training. 

• The development of all training materials and resources, including pre-surveys, preparing & sending all course communications to customers, answering enquiries and question.

• Manage and develop the training team (including hiring, mentoring, and evaluating performance), and work with the wider Snook team to integrate their expertise into the training programmes.

• Work with clients and stakeholders to understand their training needs and design customized training programmes to meet those needs.

• Continuously evaluate and improve existing training programmes to ensure they are meeting the needs of clients and public participants and are effective in achieving desired outcomes.

• Manage business development within the training area, supporting the onboarding and finance for new clients. Help support the Business Development team with writing bids and proposals where appropriate.

• Maintain contacts with organisations we have worked with and keep them up to date with any offers and develop new contacts.  

• Ensure compliance with all relevant laws and regulations related to training and development.

• Work with the team to create and keep all the courses fresh and up to date with industry practice. Keep adding to the curated Snook public facing courses and the internal offerings to organisations.

• Promote and be the voice of Snook training both internally and externally. 

• Creating and maintaining the organic social media for the courses, supporting the marketing team on creating content to promote the courses.  

• Keep the website & Eventbrite courses up to date on new dates and courses.

The ideal candidate will be a strategic thinker with a passion for developing and delivering high-quality, user-centred design and research training programmes.  

If you have a proven track record of success in training and development and are excited about the opportunity to develop the Snook Academy and empower the training team to thrive, we'd love to hear from you. 
 
Skills and experience: 

• Strong understanding of research and service design within the government/ healthcare sector.
• Proven experience developing and delivering effective training or learning development programs. Self-serve would be desirable but not essential.  
• Experience coaching, developing and managing a team in a leadership role. 
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong attention to detail and ability to prioritise and meet deadlines. 
• An expert facilitator of workshops and training, both in person and remote. 
• Ability to create impactful, high quality training materials that align to the Snook brand.
• Bachelor's degree in a relevant field, such as education, training, Service Design or facilitation.
• Experience in training and development.

You don’t have to have all of these, if you have some and you are interested in the role please get in touch. 

What we offer

• 29.5 days holiday (this includes bank holidays), 4 of which are fixed to be taken at Christmas. Plus there are up to an additional 3-6 discretionary days for Christmas Closure 
• Snook group pension plan 
• A supportive maternity package 
• Flexible working hours to support family friendly working and other commitments you may have 
• A bike to work scheme 
• A vibrant and supportive online and studio culture 
• Access to Snook social clubs, and opportunity to run your own 
• Membership to Headspace, the meditation app 
• Annual team away-day and quarterly show and tells where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks 
• Weekly learning sessions plus an annual training budget 
• We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started 

How to apply

1. Go to our listing and select ‘I’m interested’ 

2. Upload your CV 

3. Add your cover letter - tell us why you think you’d a good fit for the role and why you want to work for Snook 

We’re recruiting continuously so please do apply as soon as possible. This vacancy will close as soon as the position is filled. 

All offers are subject to satisfactory security vetting and reference checks. As standard, all roles undertake a Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) check. As a provider of services to the UK Government, where necessary we adhere to HMG’s personnel security and vetting policy requiring that minimum personnel security controls are checked as specified in the Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS). Some roles may require national security vetting clearance at the Security Check (SC) level and Non-Police Personnel Vetting (NPPV) Level 3. Where applicable local (non-UK) security checks and vetting schemes will be used to provide sufficient personnel security controls. 

Any questions? 

If you have any questions please get in touch with us at [email protected] 

Remote interviews 

Due to Hybrid working, all interviews will be done remotely. We can offer interview times that suit you including outside of work hours. If you have children, caring during or any other circumstances we’re happy to find an interview time that works for you. 

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries. We’re committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities.