Senior Service Designer

We’re looking for a Senior Service Designer to join our Policy and Innovation Lab (‘CoLab’) within Migration and Borders.

CoLab is a creative team of designers, researchers and technologists working on user-centred policy design. We work closely with policy and operations teams from across the Home Office to deliver innovative and impactful projects. We build a deep understanding of the challenges they face and rapidly design and test novel solutions to de-risk decisions.

This role is part of an exciting new Lab set up to address policy and operational challenges specific to Migration & Borders. We explore complex issues like how people can get permission to come to the UK, how we can help people know what they’re entitled to, or how we can help refugees better integrate.

As a Senior Service Designer, you’ll be passionate about delivering better services, taking a leading role on projects to shape the approach and guide the delivery. You’ll be confident working in a fast-paced environment as part of a multi-disciplinary team. And you’ll be skilled at designing for both the front stage and behind the scenes, using evidence to inform your design decisions and measure service outcomes.

You’ll work closely with user researchers and technical architects, with access to a range of other specialist skillsets when required.

Responsibilities

You will:

– Collaborate with user researchers and policy and operational experts from across the Home Office to explore and understand complex issues.

– Develop the end-to-end view on projects, creating service visualisations to help teams understand and scope their work, and align effort towards a service vision.

– Identify opportunities to improve the performance or management of existing policies and services.

– Create and refine compelling policy and service solutions by drawing on findings from user research, data patterns, policy and operational intent and technical architecture.

– Present project findings and related recommendations to senior decision makers across government.

– Consider the needs of diverse audiences to ensure teams design accessible and inclusive digital services.

You will also:

– Coach and support more junior service designers in the Home Office.

– Help shape how CoLab operates, including the culture, methods, tools, artefacts and standards it adopts over time.

– Raise awareness of what good service design looks like by sharing best practice and case studies across the Home Office and wider government.

Essential Criteria:

We would love to hear from a wide range of people who can demonstrate some, or all, of the following skills and experiences:

– Understanding complex systems and creating service visualisations to help others to navigate them.

– Structuring and managing the design process, including framing problems and identifying measurable target outcomes.

– Facilitating engaging workshops to help multidisciplinary groups align, explore, ideate, prioritise or make decisions.

– Designing evidence-based solutions that might shape policy, processes, technology or infrastructure, and developing sketches, diagrams and rapid prototypes to test ideas with users and stakeholders.

– Effectively communicating information and ideas using diagrams, prototypes and written narratives to influence stakeholders and decision-makers.

– Engaging colleagues who are less familiar with service design or user-centred design.

– Working autonomously, while managing multiple deadlines and responding to changing priorities.

Desirable Criteria:

Ideally you will also have experience:

– Working in an agile delivery environment, creating digital services as part of a multidisciplinary team.

– Aligning to the GDS Service Manual.

– Working with policy teams or contributing to policy making.

– Working in an innovation lab or similar environment.

– Line managing, coaching and mentoring to develop skills of team members.

Desirable but not essential: a degree in design or related field, and/or relevant industry experience.