Senior Service Designer in Leeds

On behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) we are looking for a Senior Service Designer for a 6‑month (Inside IR35) contract. Hybrid working is required, with 3 days per week based in Leeds. The DWP is responsible for welfare, pensions, and child maintenance policy. As the UK’s biggest public service department, it administers the State Pension and a range of working‑age, disability and ill‑health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.

Key Priorities:

• Help people move into work and support those already in work to progress, increasing overall workforce participation.
• Help people plan and save for later life while providing a safety net for those who need it now.
• Provide effective, efficient, and innovative services to the millions of claimants who rely on us daily, including the most vulnerable in society.
• Improve service experience while maximising value for money for the taxpayer.

About the Role:

As a Senior Service Designer you will be an experienced practitioner who drives awareness of service performance and improvement needs to achieve successful outcomes. You will understand user needs and business or policy goals, visualise whole services end‑to‑end and front‑to‑back, and work with multidisciplinary teams to reduce or remove issues. You will lead or mentor a small team, set service design methods, lead workshops, and use design patterns to support strategy and decision‑making. You will also support the service design community by organising or attending meet‑ups to share work openly.

Responsibilities:

• Understand user needs and design services that meet them, collaborating with multidisciplinary teams.
• Demonstrate good working knowledge of service design in practice.
• Analyse research findings, data, insights, and critical thinking for concept generation.
• Apply qualitative and quantitative research methods and collaborate with researchers.
• Lead workshops to drive actionable outcomes.
• Align and support communication with product owners and policy colleagues to define customer journeys and articulate product visions.
• Understand as‑is service design and identify improvement opportunities.
• Analyse pain points within services and build design solutions that fulfil user needs and business outcomes.
• Use prototyping methods to communicate ideas with real users, encouraging collaboration and iterative processes.

Essential Qualifications:

• Demonstrable Service Design experience.
• Experience implementing best‑practice service design practices.
• Ability to create high‑quality deliverables, including personas, experience maps, insights packs, user flow maps and service blueprints.
• Strong communication and stakeholder‑management skills.

Location & Contract:

Contract – 6 months, Inside IR35; hybrid 3 days per week in Leeds. Position is UK‑only; cannot be performed overseas.

Disability Confident:

DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and meet all essential criteria. In cases of high volume, the best candidates from that group will be interviewed. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, desirable criteria may be applied, which can include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant:

DWP guarantees to interview veterans or spouses/partners of military personnel who meet all essential criteria. In cases of high volume, the best candidates from that group will be interviewed. In exceptional circumstances, desirable criteria may be applied, which can include holding active security clearance.

Additional Information:

Specialist in Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such, payment to the intermediary and your income from this contract will differ.