Service Designer

Location Hybrid based from either London (Canary Wharf), Leeds, Liverpool or Birmingham. Salary Civil Service SEO grade (Senior Executive Officer) – £41,983 – £52,113 per annum, pro rata. Duration Fixed‑term appointment until 1st April 2028.

Job Summary

You will be joining the Chief Medical Advisor Directorate which provides trusted clinical and public health leadership through expert advice, guidance, epidemiological insights and evidence. The group leads and delivers services protecting the population from hazards locally, nationally and globally. The role sits within UKHSA’s core User‑Centred Design (UCD) team, part of the Readiness and Surge division. Readiness and Surge works across UKHSA and sets the strategic direction for UKHSA’s readiness to respond to all threats and hazards. We focus on Agency capability, putting external stakeholder and customer needs at the centre of designs for the future. We identify opportunities to improve public health outcomes through better user experiences and end‑to‑end design.

Responsibilities

• Embed UCD approaches into UKHSA ways of working.
• Ensure user needs are understood, designed for, and advocated for, achieving equitable outcomes.
• Ensure our products are accessible and developed to the Government Service Standards, following appropriate style guides and patterns.
• Lead the UKHSA‑wide UCD community of practice to support organisational and individual development.
• As a service designer, work as part of a multidisciplinary squad, collaborating with teams across UKHSA to provide strategy, guidance and support for user‑centred policies, services and products.
• As a practitioner, work with complexity, choosing design methods to explore problems across digital and non‑digital channels.
• Work with stakeholders to design services that reduce friction and complexity across the whole service, finding accessible solutions that help UKHSA achieve its public health objectives.
• Collaborate with other UCD professionals to ensure quality, innovation and creativity in design approaches and concept realization for stakeholders.
• Actively participate in the UCD community, demonstrating and encouraging the sharing of insight.
• Deliver effective designs, supporting service transformation by understanding existing services and identifying key opportunities for end‑to‑end improvement.
• Discover and analyse insights with stakeholders to identify common themes, pain points and user needs.
• Prototype complex ideas at an appropriate fidelity and iterate them.
• Identify solutions to complex problems within services, supporting them with design concepts that balance user needs with business, operational and technical requirements.
• Advocate for the value of a user‑centred, inclusive, and evidence‑based approach to service design and delivery, embedding effective design practice.
• Plan design activities, working directly with other professions to ensure effective and timely delivery.
• Improve design practice by using a range of design techniques and encouraging others to think of alternative ways to conduct design work.
• Actively participate in the UCD community of practice, fostering a culture of continuous professional development and collaboration.

Person Specification

To be considered for this role, you’ll need:

• Experience in service design and applying user‑centred design methods and practices in complex organisations.
• Ability to manage relationships with a variety of internal and external stakeholders to improve services and gain support for standards, design solutions, roadmaps, and ways of working.
• Ability to select and use appropriate design methods and prototyping tools to explore complex service problems and opportunities across digital and non‑digital channels.
• Ability to identify potential risks and use design to mitigate them.
• Ability to apply iterative design principles and agile methodologies to your work.
• Ability to demonstrate the importance of designing inclusive, equitable, accessible and sustainable services.
• Ability to direct and plan design activities, working directly with other professions to ensure effective and timely delivery.
• Ability to identify and create new design patterns and components based on evidence.

You may also have experience of:

• Government service assessments.
• Working in agile environments.

Equal Opportunities

We invite applications from all individuals. The Civil Service affirms its policy to combat discrimination and promote diversity.