Service Focused Leader
Redesign what matters. Prove the return.
Your senior leaders run services, functions and change. This Level 6 Service Designer apprenticeship gives them the capability to redesign all three, and the evidence to prove it paid off.
Real projects. Real stakeholders. Real results. Every redesign is human-centred, data-led and performance-driven, measured from the first baseline to the final result.
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Key facts
- Qualification Level 6 Service Designer Apprenticeship, plus CMI Chartered Manager status (CMgr)
- Start dates Jan · Mar · May · Jul · Sep · Nov
- Duration 17 months, plus a 3–5 month End Point Assessment
- Structure 8 core workshops, 3 ROI Cycles (Team, Function, Organisation), 11 one-to-one coaching sessions and 5 progress reviews
- Outcomes 3 ROI Cycles of real service improvement, each one baselined and measured in our Fuel ROI calculator
- Funding Growth and Skills Levy funded, £15,000 funding band
A turbocharge for senior leadership
The Level 6 Service Designer credential proves your senior leaders can redesign how a function works. More value. Less cost. Bigger impact for your organisation and its customers.
Discover, Design, Deliver runs through every workshop. This is practical service design training for senior leaders: they apply design thinking, human-centred methods and disciplined transformation to build services that perform better, cost less and work for the people who use them.
No silos, no partial fixes. Your leaders redesign services end to end, front to back and across every channel: from the first step to the last, from the front line to the back office. And they keep the most important stakeholder in view throughout: the people who use the service.
WHO IT’S FOR
The leaders who run services, functions and change.
Built for experienced managers who already run a service, a function or a change programme, and are ready to redesign it. Operations managers stepping up into senior leadership. Heads of department sharpening their senior thinking to drive performance. Established senior leaders who want formal recognition for what they already deliver. Aspiring directors who need the knowledge and credentials for the most senior roles. If they own the outcome, this programme is for them.
As a Level 6 senior leadership apprenticeship with Chartered Manager status, it gives them a formal credential that matches their impact.
Experienced Operations Managers
Heads of Department
Senior Leaders
Aspiring Directors
WHY SERVICE LEADERSHIP?
Better services start with better senior leaders.
Service leadership changes how your senior leaders think, decide and influence. As service transformation training built around your organisation, it makes them more systematic, more credible and more commercial.
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See the Whole System
Senior problems are systemic. Your leaders learn to look across the whole function, spot the patterns of failure and fix them end to end.
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Shape the Organisation
Diagnose the problem. Design the cross-functional fix. Lead the transformation. Your leaders stop managing their area and start shaping the organisation.
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Change the Conversation
A structured improvement case, backed by user insight and hard evidence, changes the conversation at board level. Leaders who redesign, not just manage, earn a different level of trust.
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Design for People
The best improvements start with what colleagues, customers and stakeholders actually experience. Your leaders improve the customer experience by building functions that work for people, not just processes.
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Quantify the Value
Every failing service has a cost. Every redesign has a return. Leaders who can put a number on it carry real authority at board level.
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Rare Capability
Senior leaders who can redesign services are rare. The credential proves yours can, and they bring it to every board conversation and every new challenge.
TWO SKILL SETS. ONE SENIOR LEADER.
By the end of the programme,
your senior leaders will be able to:
- Lead their function with increased clarity
- Build, develop and retain high-capability teams
- Lead transformation and change at scale
- Create the conditions for innovation
- Navigate governance, risk and ethics with confidence
- Grow their stakeholder influence
- Communicate with credibility at the highest level
- Map services and processes across their function
- Design and prototype functional improvements
- Lead service design from brief to delivery
- Build commercial cases for senior stakeholders
- Apply design thinking and quality management
- Create the conditions for continuous improvement
- Set standards that build team capability
THE RETURN
Validated data. Measured return.
Fuel Learning’s programmes have already delivered £60m+ in verified ROI. Our Service Focused Leader programme is built to do the same for you: we’ll make every penny of your Growth and Skills Levy count, and deliver a return you can measure in pounds.
Every assessment is built around your live business: your data, your teams, your priorities. The impact isn’t hypothetical. It’s happening now. Service design is a commercial discipline. Your senior leaders work with budgets and return on investment, and weigh every service improvement against the bottom line. Real work. Real results. Real return. From day one.
| For you, the buyer | For the line manager | For the team | For the department | For the participant |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Levy invested in senior leaders who fix problems at the root, with ROI evidenced in time, cost, quality and stakeholder experience. | Senior leaders who diagnose systemic gaps and take evidence-based improvement cases to the board. | Services designed around what people need, and change that sticks because the team helped design it. | Cross-functional change that holds together end to end, tested before roll-out and measured throughout. | Senior leadership development and a service design credential, with the confidence to redesign how their function works. |
THE ROI CYCLE
Discover. Design. Deliver.
Three cycles. Bigger impact every time.
Discover, Design, Deliver is the signature cycle of the programme, and it runs through every workshop. Each phase builds capability through applied practice, not theory.
Everything is built on your leaders’ own services: real redesign projects, real stakeholders and real performance data. Each cycle tackles a live service challenge, so learning is applied immediately and capability lasts.
The scope grows every time: first their team, then their function, then the whole organisation. By the end, your leaders are ready for the End Point Assessment.
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Discover
Understand before deciding. Find the service worth improving and uncover what is really happening, from the perspective of the people who use it.
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Design
Explore the opportunities and redesign options, and involve the people. Design thinking and human-centred methods shape a solution that works end to end.
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Deliver
Test, learn and improve, for real ROI. Prove the redesign against what actually happens, then log the result in Fuel ROI.
PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
Eight core workshops.
Every workshop is built on your leaders’ real roles, with practical tools they can apply straight away. Each one combines a face-to-face or virtual workshop, follow-up 1:1 coaching and a live project. Every ROI Cycle builds on the last. The impact gets bigger every time.
What it costs. What it takes.
My Fuel programme gave me greater focus on my overall impact – helping me network with key stakeholders, break through blockers and implement change nationally.
Anthony Davies, Operations Manager & Fuel Graduate · OCS
HOW WE DELIVER
Delivery that fits.
Flex, Focus, Fusion. We offer the choice of three delivery models – so we can build the perfect programme to suit your precise needs, cohort size and preferred learning environment. Three delivery models, one decision: how do you need it delivered?
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Join an open programme
Diverse, collaborative and flexible. Your leaders learn alongside senior leaders from other organisations and sectors, with tailoring at coach level.
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Built for you
A closed cohort, tailored to your organisation. Your language, your systems, your challenges as the working material.
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The best of both
Flex and Focus combined: open, flexible workshops sitting alongside closed workshops targeted at your organisation.
GETTING STARTED
From meeting to launch.
Three steps. No hassle.
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A scoping meeting
Thirty minutes with our team. We map the roles and teams that fit, size the cohort, confirm your levy position and agree what success looks like.
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We build the cohort
We handle it all. Eligibility, funding, paperwork, onboarding and manager briefings – the only admin required from you is signing off.
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They launch
New intakes start every two months. After a short assessment and benchmarking, your leaders go straight into their first ROI Cycle.
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Core Leadership Workshops
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1:1 Executive Coaching Sessions
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ROI Cycles
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Access to over 30 additional Elective modules
Programme structure in detail
Learn it in a workshop. Apply it to a live service. Embed it with a coach. Go further with electives.
THE CADENCE
The programme runs for 17 months, followed by a 3–5 month End Point Assessment. It opens with a 6-week initial assessment and benchmarking, then eight core workshops run across three ROI Cycles. Every workshop feeds a live service redesign rather than a folder of notes. Participants have 11 one-to-one coaching sessions and 5 progress reviews along the way.
On completion, participants gain the Level 6 Service Designer Apprenticeship and CMI Chartered Manager status (CMgr).
The eight core workshops
Cycle 1: Team
• Performance and Business Impact
• Intelligence-Led Leadership
• Operational Design for Quality and Efficiency
• Innovation and Critical Thinking
Cycle 2: Function
• Building and Winning the Business Case
• Operational Excellence
Cycle 3: Organisation
• Organisational Change
• Sustainable Business Performance
THE COACHING SESSIONS
Participants have 11 one-to-one executive coaching sessions, following the workshops, plus 5 progress reviews. Their coach helps them turn learning into live redesign work: choosing the service to improve, capturing the baseline and logging the measured result in Fuel ROI. Coaching is where the three Discover, Design, Deliver cycles actually happen, and where the portfolio of evidence builds.
ELECTIVES
Alongside the core programme, participants get full access to 30+ FuelUP elective modules across Finance & Governance, Change & Innovation, People Management, Operational Skills, Strategy & Business Acumen, and Leadership & Personal Development.
THE DIGITAL LIBRARY AND THE SHOWCASE
A full suite of online training content, created and curated by Fuel Learning, available 24/7, so every skill from every workshop is on tap at the moment it’s actually needed. Scheduling runs through the FuelHub or a dedicated Fuel Learner Manager, and the Showcase closes the programme: measured ROI presented to senior stakeholders.
The End Point Assessment
The End Point Assessment (EPA) is where participants showcase everything they’ve learned and prove they’re ready to lead as service designers. It’s carried out independently by Academy4PM and leads to a nationally recognised grade of Pass or Distinction.
• Work-based project with presentation and questioning: a real service design project, written up as a report of around 4,000 words, then presented to an independent assessor and followed by questioning (60 minutes in total).
• Professional discussion: a conversation of at least 60 minutes with the assessor, underpinned by a portfolio of evidence built from real work throughout the programme.
Both methods carry equal weight. Participants must pass both to pass overall, and achieve a Distinction in both for a Distinction overall.
Frequently asked questions
What does it cost us?
If you pay the Growth and Skills Levy, the programme is fully covered by it, up to the £15,000 funding band, with no course fees on top. Non-levy employers access the same programme with government covering 95% of the cost. One call and we’ll confirm your exact position.
Can we use our Growth and Skills Levy for service design training?
Yes. The Service Focused Leader programme is a Level 6 Service Designer apprenticeship, so the training your senior leaders receive is funded through your Growth and Skills Levy, in the £15,000 funding band. That covers the eight core workshops, 11 one-to-one coaching sessions and access to 30+ FuelUp elective modules, with service design built into every workshop rather than added as a separate course.
How much time does it take out of the working week?
Around six hours a week of off-the-job learning, built into working hours. This includes eight core workshops across 17 months, 11 one-to-one coaching sessions, 5 progress reviews and project work that is the participant’s own role, done better. Most senior leaders report time returned within the first cycle, not lost.
What does the line manager have to do?
A short briefing at the start, sight of the Fuel ROI calculator as results land, and the final decision that their apprentice is ready for assessment. We handle the rest, including all scheduling if they prefer.
What if we invest in them and they leave?
The stronger risk runs the other way: development is one of the biggest drivers of retention, and people who are invested in stay. And because participants coach colleagues and document every improvement, the processes, templates and time savings remain yours even in the worst case.
Who is eligible?
Anyone employed in England, aged 16 or over, in a role that fits the standard. Prior qualifications rarely block enrolment, and English and maths requirements are handled within the programme in line with funding rules. We check all of this for you before anyone commits.
How many people do we need to enrol?
Cohorts work at any size, from a handful in one department to a rolling intake across the organisation. Larger cohorts compound the return: participants coach each other, improvements spread faster, and the Fuel ROI calculator rolls everything into one report you can put in front of the board.
When can they start?
We have new Level 6 cohorts starting every two months: January, March, May, July, September, November.
Not quite the right fit?
We have programmes for every level of your organisation. If our Level 6 Service Focused Leader programme isn’t the right fit for your people, one of these will be.
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Growth and Skills Levy Funded
Leadership
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Take the next step
Request a callback. A member of the Fuel team will talk you through the Service Focused Leader programme, answer your questions and show you how it will drive lasting service transformation across your organisation.
Ready for your senior leaders
to reach the next level?
LEAD PEOPLE EFFECTIVELY • REDESIGN WHAT MATTERS • DELIVER LASTING RESULTS