Senior Designer – Furniture and Upholstery

About the role

Are you a Senior Furniture Designer looking for your next big opportunity? We’re looking for a highly experienced and creative Furniture designer to join our team, designing and developing own brand products including cabinetry, freestanding furniture and upholstery.

What you’ll bring:

• A versatile design ‘handwriting’ capable of adapting to multiple styles.
• Extensive experience in product development across various home furniture products.
• Exceptional research skills with a proven ability to identify key furniture trends and successfully translate them into commercial, market-ready products.

As a Senior Furniture Designer, you will support the Leadership team in creating the individual category design strategy, ensuring it is aligned to the overall strategic direction and providing insight into your area of Own Brand products. You will be responsible for designing, developing and delivering original, relevant, customer‑centric and distinct best‑in‑class own brand products, utilising customer insights to inspire, excite and delight our customers. You will tangibly contribute to the delivery of planned growth for Own Brand categories. You will take a leading role in designing more complex products / design briefs within the category, working independently, alongside or in collaboration with the wider Design and Commercial community. Additionally, you will work strategically with smaller suppliers to support longer‑term plans (as an example).

• Contract type – This position is a Permanent contract.

• Working pattern/flexible working – The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you’ll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs while balancing the needs of the business. The Product Design team aims for 3 days a week in the office to connect and on a more ad‑hoc basis to attend key meetings.

• Location – This role is based at our London Head Office campus in Pimlico. Please note, any cost incurred as a result of travel to the office is the responsibility of the successful candidate. There is no travel allowance for this role.

• Next Steps – The application process requires you to upload recent portfolio/examples of your work as well as your CV and application answers. An initial shortlist will be invited to a virtual portfolio review which will be held wc/ 13th July 2026. A final shortlist will then be invited to attend a formal interview where you will be required to present a small project that will be provided to you in advance. Interviews will be held in person at our Head Office in Pimlico W/C 3rd August 2026.

Key responsibilities

• Create the individual category design strategy, ensuring it is aligned to the overall strategic direction and providing insight into your area of Own Brand products.
• Play a critical role in delivering product design that will form a coherent category assortment aligned to brand/sub‑brand guidelines and in service of our customers. Focus on technically more complex products and/or lead the design of a more complex sub‑category.
• Align to the Own Brand assortment strategy with a strong focus on understanding our customer and their evolving needs and desires to ensure that we deliver appropriate and relevant products. High involvement in trend and forecasting.
• Recommend, prepare and present relevant and appropriate category trends through high quality research to the wider team.
• Ensure the sampling process is efficient. Produce precise design packs and fulfil seasonal design briefs with commercial and innovative solutions, supported by illustrating/briefing/sourcing key materials and details. Ensure accurate samples are produced. Maintain comprehensive records of design projects.
• Apply a diverse set of skills to effectively bring design concepts to life. Demonstrate proficiency in traditional design and development techniques—drawing, painting, and model making—and modern design software. Include tools for 3D modelling (furniture & hard goods design) and 2D applications (pattern and surface design). Working knowledge of emerging technologies, including 3D printing, rapid prototyping, and AI integration in the design development process.
• Effectively communicate the technical designs to suppliers and manufacturers for costing, prototyping and production.

Stakeholder Management

• Work collaboratively with all levels of Buying, Merchandising and the Technical team to co‑create briefs and deliver identified outcomes ensuring that these align with the brand guidelines.
• Build and maintain strong supplier relationships, including co‑creating designs.
• Lead success‑driven, cross‑department working through effective stakeholder relationships. Lead through change.

Leadership

• Foster a collaborative and high‑performance team culture and, where required within the team structure, provide high‑calibre people management to L8 Designers and Assistant Designers.
• Create the conditions for them to thrive, and balance their focus and priorities as required.
• Accountable for the partners you manage, ensuring they deliver against their goals and address any underperformance decisively, fairly and swiftly. Engage in conversations to support their direct reports via development to improve/close the gap.
• Mentor, develop and share skill knowledge across the design studio, enabling team members to learn and contribute in a practical way.
• Act as a role model and contribute to a cohesive and positive design team through behavioural and work ethics.
• Support the professional development and growth of team members, ensuring a skilled and motivated workforce capable of achieving departmental objectives. Provide coaching, development and feedback.
• Use a coaching style to support others to find their own answers and help them unlock their potential through skilful questioning and active listening. Balance support and challenge.
• Lead partners within multi‑disciplinary and matrix teams to achieve and deliver work, in line with business outcomes and with the voice of the customer at the heart of decision making.
• Work autonomously and set a clear direction for those within your project team, agreeing ambition and a process to achieve the outcome. Tasks may include projects, category collections, sub‑brands.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

• Demonstrated ability to translate design concepts into production‑ready designs and technical specifications using technology. Furniture & hard product design roles require excellent 3D modelling skills using software such as SolidWorks, Rhino, KeyShot.
• Experience in stakeholder management, excellent communication and presentation skills and experience in leading and motivating a design team, fostering creativity and collaboration.
• A strong understanding of the retail home market, including trends, consumer behaviour and competitive landscape.
• Hold an ability to translate trends into commercially viable designs.
• A proven commercial and customer focus.
• Excellent knowledge of product construction or other relevant technical experience—for example, an understanding of key materials, construction techniques, commercial manufacturing constraints.
• A track record of credible creative achievements.
• A strong understanding of the JL&P brand and/or sub‑brands, their brand values and potential for product.

Desirable skills/experience you may have

• Experience in people management, demonstrating a passion to develop and acquire leadership skills and capabilities.
• Ability to switch between strategic creative thinking and guiding product design & development of a team.
• BA degree in Design (product, furniture).
• Substantial experience within a product design studio.
• Good external network across the design industry.

About The Partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees; we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify.

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect.

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can thrive. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective.

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.

Important points to note: It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre‑employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third‑party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.

We occasionally close vacancies early in the event we receive a high volume of applications, and therefore we recommend you apply early. If you require a reasonable adjustment due to a disability which means you may need longer to complete your application please contact us as soon as possible.

We want all of our Partners to have a good work‑life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.

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