We are looking for an experienced Senior Service Designer to work within a multidisciplinary team delivering complex digital services for a UK public sector client.
You will lead service design activity across the service lifecycle, working from Discovery and Alpha through Beta and Live, depending on the assignment. You will help teams understand complex service landscapes, identify user and organisational needs, and design coherent end-to-end services across digital and non-digital channels.
Working alongside user researchers, interaction designers, content designers, product managers, business analysts, delivery managers, developers, architects, policy colleagues and operational teams, you will ensure services are designed around user needs while considering policy, technology and operational constraints.
You will be expected to work confidently within a GOV.UK Service Standard and Government Digital and Data environment, helping teams make evidence-based design decisions and prepare services for assessment where required.
Key responsibilities
You will:
- Lead service design activity within an Agile multidisciplinary delivery team.
- Map as-is and to-be services, identifying pain points, dependencies, opportunities and gaps across the end-to-end journey.
- Create and maintain service blueprints, journey maps, service maps, ecosystem maps and other appropriate service-design artefacts.
- Understand the relationship between user-facing journeys and the processes, people, policy, data and technology that support them.
- Translate user research, analytics, operational insight and wider evidence into actionable service improvements.
- Work closely with user researchers to ensure service decisions are grounded in a strong understanding of user needs.
- Collaborate with interaction and content designers to create coherent experiences across digital and non-digital touchpoints.
- Work with product, business analysis, architecture, technology, policy and operational colleagues to understand constraints and design viable services.
- Plan and facilitate workshops, co-design sessions, service-mapping activities and collaborative decision-making.
- Prototype service concepts and test assumptions early, iterating designs based on evidence and feedback.
- Identify dependencies and systemic issues that may affect the successful delivery of the service.
- Communicate complex service journeys and design decisions clearly to senior stakeholders and multidisciplinary teams.
- Build consensus around service-design approaches while constructively challenging assumptions where necessary.
- Contribute to Service Standard assessments and assurance activity where required.
- Champion accessibility, inclusion and user-centred design throughout delivery.
We are particularly interested in contractors who can demonstrate:
- Strong experience as a Senior Service Designer within UK central government, wider public sector or another GDS-aligned environment.
- Practical experience designing services in line with the GOV.UK Service Standard and user-centred design principles.
- Experience working across one or more government delivery phases such as Discovery, Alpha, Beta or Live.
- Evidence of designing complex services end-to-end, and across multiple channels.
- Strong service mapping and visualisation skills, including service blueprints, user journeys and ecosystem/service maps.
- Experience translating user research and other evidence into service-design decisions.
- Strong workshop facilitation and co-design skills.
- Experience working with a broad range of stakeholders, including senior stakeholders, policy, operational and technical colleagues.
- Ability to navigate ambiguity, bring structure to complex problems and establish a clear service-design direction.
- Strong understanding of accessibility and inclusive design, including designing for users with different access needs.
- Ability to communicate and defend design decisions using clear evidence.
- Experience identifying measures or success criteria that can be used to understand service performance and impact.
- Experience using collaborative design and mapping tools such as Miro, Lucid or equivalent, with an understanding of Figma or similar prototyping tools.
- Experience preparing for or contributing to GOV.UK Service Standard assessments.
- Experience working on services involving complex policy, operational, data or technology dependencies.
At Version 1, we believe in providing our employees with a comprehensive benefits package that prioritises their wellbeing, professional growth, and financial stability.
- Share in our success with our Quarterly Performance-Related Profit Share Scheme, where employees collectively benefit from a share of our company's profits
- Strong Career Progression & mentorship coaching through our Strength in Balance & Leadership schemes with a dedicated quarterly Pathways Career Development programme
- Flexible/remote working, Version 1 is tremendously understanding of life events and people’s individual circumstances and offer flexibility to help achieve a healthy work life balance
- Financial Wellbeing initiatives including; Version 1 Pension with a 5% employee-matched contribution, Private Healthcare Cover, Life Assurance, Financial advice and an Employee Discount scheme
- Employee Wellbeing schemes including Gym Discounts, Bike to Work, Fitness classes, Mindfulness Workshops, Employee Assistance Programme and much more.
- 24 days holiday allowance plus Public Holidays, enhanced maternity/paternity leave, marriage/civil partnership leave and special leave policies
- Educational assistance, incentivised certifications, and accreditations, including AWS, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat
- Reward schemes including Version 1’s Annual Excellence Awards & quarterly Star Awards.
- Environment, Social and Community First initiatives allow you to get involved in local fundraising and development opportunities as part of fostering our diversity, inclusion and belonging schemes.
And many more exciting benefits… drop us a note to find out more.
Version 1 is an equal opportunities employer
We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace where everyone feels valued and able to thrive. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities and lived experiences, and we value the different perspectives people bring including those shaped by disability and neurodiversity.
We want every candidate to have a positive and accessible recruitment experience. If you need reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process, please contact Ashley.Smith@version1.com at Version 1. We will consider all requests carefully, respectfully and confidentially.
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