ARCHIVEDGovernmentFull Time
Senior Service Designer

Department for Education
◆Salary X-Ray?Indicative range based on survey data, not a guarantee for this role.£60kExpand ▾
From the 2026 Salary(+) Report
£60k
median base salary
£50k£69k
LowHigh
Based on 148 respondents
senior roles in United Kingdom (UK)
As a Senior Service Designer, you will
- Provide service design leadership and direction and contribute more widely to the future of service design across government
- Work closely with other government departments for a cohesive approach to service design as well as to design services that need to work across departments where necessary
- Prioritise understanding the needs and actual behaviour of users and help teams use this insight to underpin and drive the work they do
- Assess performance of services and teams against digital by default standards
- Help others to think through, communicate and help people understand how things could be, using facilitation skills, sketches, scenarios and diagrams such as maps, blueprints and prototypes
- Know how to design accessible digital services and help others to do so
- Analyse demand and failure within a service, identify root causes for that failure, frame problems, identify desired outcomes and key measures – and facilitate others to do so
- Lead discussions at a senior departmental level and successfully negotiate change (e.g. operational, organisational, policy, financial or technology) to support the delivery of better services
- Mentor and coach individuals, service teams and other parts of the organisation, run training and workshops to facilitate learning.
Key Criteria
Responsibilities
Essential
- Be an experienced service designer with a strong user centred design practitioner background, skilled in designing good services
- Work with the teams and stakeholders to capture the entire perspective of your service and set the vision
- Have experience and evidence of designing or re-designing services to be more effective or efficient
- Have good knowledge of digital approaches and technology to understand how services can work better
- Able to prototype services or parts of them, facilitate groups of people to contribute effectively to re-design them
- Able to create diagrams and sketches that clearly communicate users’ journeys, interactions and other behaviours through services
- Able to communicate clear rationale and evidence base for proposals or design decisions
- Be open to constructive criticism and be able to constructively review the work of others
- Able to work effectively with and influence a wide range of stakeholders
- Have experience in helping others by expanding their knowledge to lead organisational change
- Be experienced with user centred design in an agile environment as well as how to use hypotheses in design, make evidence-based design decisions and facilitate others in an organisation to do so
Desirable
- Design related degree or relevant industry experience
- Be familiar with wider government strategy and its position on digital and design.
- Know how to make services accessible to the greatest range of people and needs
- Be familiar with the government service design manual, service standards and design patterns
Seniority Level
Associate
Industry
- Information Technology & Services
- Government Administration
- Financial Services
Employment Type
Full-time
Job Functions
- Design
- Art/Creative
- Information Technology
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