Lead Interaction Designer in Edinburgh

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At HMRC, we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. We want to maximise the potential of everyone who works for us, and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make an exciting career at HMRC accessible to you. Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success, and we encourage applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.

HMRC is looking for a Lead Interaction Designer to help shape and strengthen interaction design across major programmes and services. You’ll work within User-centred Design in the Chief Technology and Design Office, supporting teams and senior leaders to design accessible, usable services that meet real user needs and align with the Government Service Standard. This is a leadership role for an experienced interaction designer with strong design judgement, organisational awareness and the ability to lead through influence. While the role is grounded in interaction design expertise, it is not hands-on delivery. Instead, you’ll help create the conditions for high-quality interaction design to happen consistently across programmes and teams.

You’ll support senior designers through complex challenges and escalations, help shape programme and organisational design direction, and work with stakeholders across disciplines to improve the quality, consistency and effectiveness of design across HMRC.

You’ll:

• Shape and strengthen interaction design across major programmes and services.
• Support teams and senior stakeholders to make better design decisions in complex delivery environments.
• Create the conditions for high-quality, accessible and user-centred design to happen consistently at scale.
• Lead on complex design challenges, escalations and areas of design risk.
• Support and guide senior designers, helping them grow in confidence, judgement and leadership.
• Help shape interaction design practice across HMRC, including standards, patterns, tools and ways of working.
• Work collaboratively across disciplines and professions to improve the quality and consistency of service delivery.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Providing leadership and direction for interaction design across programmes, services or portfolios of work.
• Helping teams and stakeholders resolve complex design challenges and risks.
• Assuring the quality of interaction design across teams, helping services meet user needs, accessibility requirements and the Government Service Standard.
• Supporting and guiding Senior Interaction Designers through complex delivery challenges.
• Working with Heads of Profession, Design Leads and senior stakeholders to shape programme and organisational design direction.
• Helping multidisciplinary teams work effectively across design, research and delivery disciplines.
• Shaping and improving interaction design practice across HMRC, including standards, patterns, tools, guidance and ways of working.
• Building strong relationships with stakeholders and delivery leaders, helping them understand design constraints, trade-offs and opportunities.
• Supporting assessment readiness, design assurance and governance activities across programmes and services.
• Contributing to workforce planning, recruitment and capability development within the interaction design profession.

Essential Criteria

You will already have extensive experience and understanding of:

• Leading interaction design across large, complex or mission-critical services, helping multidisciplinary teams deliver accessible, user-centred and effective digital services.
• Providing leadership, direction and support to designers and teams, including managing, mentoring and developing senior designers through complex delivery challenges.
• Building strong relationships with senior stakeholders, influencing decision-making and helping organisations balance user needs, accessibility, technical constraints and delivery priorities.
• Deep expertise in interaction design practice, including designing accessible, user-centred services and applying core design approaches such as prototyping, journey mapping, iterative design and working with modern web technologies.
• Designing inclusive and accessible services, and using research, evidence and feedback to shape, test and improve design decisions.
• Design assurance and influencing through design, including reviewing work, improving quality and consistency across programmes and services, and clearly communicating decisions, challenging assumptions and supporting teams to work through complexity and ambiguity.

HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.

We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days.

Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues’ Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary.

Family friendly policies. Personal support. Coaching and development.