UX/UI Designer - Product Operations - 12 Months Fixed Term Contract
Next · Leicester
We’re looking for a UX/UI Designer to join our eCommerce UX team on a 12-month fixed-term contract, based at NEXT Head Office in Leicestershire.
The Role
In this position within the broader UX team, the successful candidate will be dedicated to the Product Operations Department, contributing to the development and optimisation of tools utilised by Product Teams to manage clothing and Home merchandise. The role involves working across a new, internal buying PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) system, as well as developing data visualisation tools to support stock management decisions.
The PLM platform is the central system responsible for loading and managing the critical product data for the items that build our ranges. The data for every product we sell that informs our suppliers, drives our logistics and warehousing, and powers our Digital Experiences.
Alongside our main Product System you will work to establish simple frameworks that can be translated into reporting tools. These reports drive our buying and range decisions helping to create balanced product offers that meet our customers needs. Whether in the reporting tool or the system we want our users to have the same consistent, clear and simple experience.
This is an opportunity to work on a large, strategically important programme, designing highly efficient, user-centric tools. You will empower our buying teams to load and manage data across complex, diverse product ranges with speed and accuracy and make informed trading decisions.
You’ll translate complex processes, technical requirements and large amounts of information into clear, intuitive user experiences. Working closely with product managers, product owners, developers, architects, data specialists and operational users, you’ll ensure the platform is both powerful and straightforward to use.
You’ll also be part of NEXT’s wider UX community, collaborating with other designers, sharing knowledge and contributing to the development of our design practices, standards and culture.
While experience designing software platforms, enterprise tools or product information systems (PLM) would be particularly valuable, we’re also keen to hear from experienced ecommerce UX designers who are comfortable simplifying complex journeys and learning new domains.
At NEXT, we’ll support your transition into the team with hands-on exposure to our design systems, product architecture and internal processes, giving you the context needed to make an impact.
What You'll Take On
- Understand complex business processes and technical requirements, translating them into clear user journeys, information architecture and interface designs.
- Work directly with internal users to understand their needs, pain points and day-to-day workflows.
- Create user flows, wireframes and interactive prototypes to explore, communicate and validate potential solutions.
- Use rapid prototyping—including AI-assisted tools where appropriate—to bring concepts to life, gain stakeholder support and improve the handoff to development teams.
- Design clear, consistent and accessible interfaces for complex, data-rich tools.
- Conduct user research and usability testing with internal teams, using the findings to refine designs and inform product decisions.
- Collaborate closely with product managers, developers, architects, data specialists and business stakeholders throughout the product-development lifecycle.
- Work collaboratively within the wider UX team, sharing ideas, knowledge and best practices across different product areas.
- Contribute to and maintain shared design patterns and component libraries, ensuring consistency across the platform.
- Help define how information, system states, errors and complex dependencies are communicated to users.
- Present design thinking and recommendations clearly, using prototypes and evidence to communicate the value of proposed concepts.
- Take ownership of design work from initial discovery and concept development through to implementation and go-live.
- Review delivered experiences to identify usability issues, inconsistencies and opportunities for continued improvement.
What You'll Bring
- A strong background in UX and UI design, supported by a portfolio demonstrating how you solve complex problems through design.
- Experience designing software products, enterprise platforms, internal tools, product information systems or other complex digital services would be advantageous.
- Alternatively, a strong ecommerce UX background with experience simplifying complex customer or operational journeys.
- High proficiency in industry-standard design tools such as Figma, including the ability to create rapid interactive prototypes that communicate workflows and micro-interactions.
- Experience using AI-assisted tools to create working or high-fidelity prototypes would be advantageous, particularly where prototypes have been used to communicate concepts to stakeholders or support effective development handoffs.
- Strong information architecture and interaction-design skills, with the ability to make complex systems feel clear and manageable.
- Experience working with design systems and reusable component libraries.
- A good understanding of responsive design principles and accessibility standards, including WCAG.
- A user-centred approach and the curiosity to understand unfamiliar systems, processes and user needs.
- Confidence working with technical teams and discussing requirements, dependencies and implementation considerations.
- The ability to use research, data and user feedback to make evidence-based design decisions.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the confidence to present ideas and explain the reasoning behind them.
- The ability to work at pace, manage multiple priorities and maintain a high level of attention to detail.
- A proactive and collaborative approach, with the ability to independently drive work forward while maintaining alignment across the Product Systems programme and wider UX team.
Join our UX team and help design the critical product systems that drive NEXT’s global supply chain, logistics, and digital experiences.
If you’re excited by the challenge of turning complex systems into intuitive products, we’d love to see your portfolio. Apply today.
Sponsorship
Candidates wishing to apply who would require sponsorship for this role will be required to meet the Home Office sponsorship requirements. For further information please see: www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa.
#LI-Onsite
You know Next, but did you know we’re a FTSE-100 retail company employing over 44,000 people across the Next group. We’re the UK’s 2nd largest fashion retailer and for Kidswear we’re the market leader. At the last count we have over 450 stores, plus the Next Online and it’s now possible to buy on-line from over 80 countries around the world! So we’ve gone global! In this position within the broader UX team, the successful candidate will be dedicated to the Product Operations Department, contributing to the development and optimisation of tools utilised by Product Teams to manage clothing and Home merchandise.