Strategic Services Lead

Location (UK): Office Hybrid* - London / Sheffield
Hours: 35 hours per week, full-time
Salary: £63,121 per annum (London), £60,115 per annum (rest of UK)
Benefits: Read more about the excellent benefits we offer
Contract type: Fixed term for 18 months
Travel: Occasional travel to London, Sheffield, Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff offices and external meetings
Closing date: 23:59 hours, Sunday 18 October 2026

Join us and use your skills, knowledge, passion and energy to help us achieve a future free from arthritis.

We’re looking for an experienced strategic and service design leader, confident working with health information, digital and frontline services, to join our National and Digital Services team. You’ll lead a small, committed team and work closely with colleagues across the charity to make sure our information really works for adults, young people and children with arthritis and those who support them.

About the role

As Strategic Services Lead, you will shape how Arthritis UK’s health information and related education and support resources are designed, delivered and used across the charity. You’ll ensure that people with arthritis, their families and carers can easily find and use trusted, accessible information wherever they come into contact with us.

Working at a strategic, service design level, you will lead the vision and strategy for our health information, and how it underpins our services, programmes and digital products. You’ll design and coordinate clear information and service pathways so that support feels joined up from first contact through to ongoing self management.

You will oversee our health information governance, including maintaining Patient Information Forum (PIF TICK) accreditation and structured review cycles, so our content remains accurate, trusted and up to date. You will line manage the Health Information Manager and Health Information Services Manager, planning resources across both teams to balance review work, new development and programme needs.

You’ll also work closely with colleagues in Communities and Partnerships, Young People and Families, Professional Engagement and Education, and Digital and Data teams. Together, you’ll embed information into services and products, strengthen our trusted digital content in a changing online landscape, and involve people with lived experience of arthritis to ensure our information is relevant, inclusive and impactful.

About you

If your knowledge, skills and experience include the following then we’d love to hear from you:

Significant experience in strategic information management and design, for example in health or patient information, health content or health communications.
Proven experience in service or programme design, especially designing information journeys or support pathways in health or care settings.
Strong track record of leading multi disciplinary work across content and service delivery.
Excellent stakeholder management skills, with a collaborative and solutions focused approach.
Excellent strategic thinking skills, able to see how content, services and channels interlink.
Strong communication skills, able to explain complex topics and design choices to different audiences, including senior leaders.

Desirable, but not essential:

Experience with PIF TICK (or equivalent health information quality standards) and formal review processes.
Experience in self management support, behaviour change interventions, structured education or digital health products.
Knowledge of arthritis or musculoskeletal conditions, and a passion for improving the lives of people with long term conditions.

*As a hybrid worker the expectation is that you will spend around 40% of your working time in our office spaces or working in community settings.

As an inclusive employer we will consider home-based working for anyone where office-based hybrid working would be a barrier to being able to work for us, for example for someone living with a long-term health condition or disability.

Download the job description and person specification for the Strategic Services Lead role (Word 171KB).

Benefits

Your excellent benefits include:

Flexible hours, environments and working practices to promote a healthy work/life balance.
Health and wellbeing support – including the Employee Assistance Programme (free confidential 24/7 support with mental health, legal and financial queries).
Simplyhealth cash plan.
Supportive and inclusive culture, with a wide range of employee networks and support groups available to join.
Learning and personal development opportunities.
Employee supported volunteering.
Competitive annual leave, with the option to buy/sell up to five days per year.
Generous pension plan, with employer contribution of up to 10%.
Life Assurance plan (4 x salary).

How to apply

You must be based in and hold the right to work in the UK to apply for this position.

To apply you MUST submit:

a concise, up-to-date CV
along with an Application form (Word 152KB) demonstrating how you meet the key requirements set out in the job description and person specification for the Strategic Services Lead role (Word 171KB).
All sections of the application form must be fully completed.

Email both documents as Word or PDF attachments by 23:59 hours on 18 October 2026 to recruitment@arthritis-uk.org.

If you have a health condition that prevents you from following the steps above, please email us regarding alternative ways to apply, recruitment@arthritis-uk.org. 

Application deadline and shortlisting 

We advise candidates to apply early as we reserve the right to close applications ahead of this date.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

We do not wish to receive contact from agencies or media sales. 

Please note that we do not use Artificial Intelligence (AI) during our recruitment and selection processes, and we would respectfully ask that you also refrain from using AI during the selection process. Whilst we do recognise that AI may be a beneficial tool for some when aiding research and preparation for an application or interview, we want to maintain a fair, inclusive and positive recruitment experience at Arthritis UK where candidates can feel supported to demonstrate their experience, knowledge, and skills without the use of AI generated answers.

Interview

There will be a two-stage interview process. First interviews will be held remotely on Microsoft Teams throughout the first week of November. Second interviews will be held in London on 12 November.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee you will be offered an interview if you disclose a disability and demonstrate sufficient evidence within your application that you meet the essential criteria for this role. We will also make any reasonable adjustments you may require for your interview.

About us

We have made a commitment in our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy to increase the diversity of our charity and we welcome candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. We want our employees, volunteers and trustees to represent the broad diversity of the communities of which we are a part.

There are over 10 million people living with arthritis. That’s one in six, with over half of those living in pain every single day. The impact is huge as the condition slowly intrudes on everyday life – affecting the ability to work, care for a family, to move free from pain and to live independently. Yet arthritis is often dismissed as an inevitable part of ageing or shrugged off as ‘just a bit of arthritis’. We don’t think that this is OK. Arthritis UK is here to change that.

Arthritis UK is committed to keeping children, young people and vulnerable adults safe from harm. During the recruitment process we will undertake safer recruitment practices and relevant checks to ensure applicants are suitable to work with children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Versus Arthritis is now Arthritis UK. New name, same vision: a future free from arthritis.

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