About the job

Job summary

This is an exciting opportunity to join the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as Lead Service and Interaction Designer within our User-Centred Design (UCD) Team.  
The UCD Team are experts in design and delivery with a shared mission to support improvements to UKHSA services and products by better understanding users’ needs and experiences.
As Lead Service Designer you will be part of the leadership team establishing the UCD function within UKHSA. You will embed UCD practices into the way in which we design and deliver products and services through exemplary practice supporting UKHSA to deliver against its mission to save lives and protect livelihoods.  This is a great development opportunity for an experienced Grade 7 to take on new and challenging work driving digital and user-centred maturity in a complex and young organisation.

Job description

We are looking for an expert practitioner with broad industry experience.  As a strong influencer and practitioner, you will be able to define and assure best practice, leading, coaching, and mentoring others, including coaching senior stakeholders and professionals from other disciplines in service design, agile and user-centeredness.   

Your key responsibilities will include:

• Provide expert UCD leadership to shape the service design practice and improve ways of working by integrating and embedding consistent and high-quality professional standards.
• Develop and shape strategies to introduce and drive awareness of service design practices, building the influence of our team across the organisation, using advanced negotiating and influencing skills with senior leaders across our organisation to embed effective practice in service development and redesign
• Analyse and understand the expectations of service owners and product teams to resolve complex problems, shaping and defining the design work needed on projects. Ensuring design is informed by data and insight to support faster and more accurate decision making at scale.
• Work with service teams to design the scope of new services across the end-to-end health protection journey so that it works seamlessly for users.  Act as the voice of users in the design of our services bringing insight and expertise in how user needs have changed over time to ensure they are met and/or exceeded by the business and are continually evolving to anticipate future needs
• Provide expertise and guidance in designing and iterating customer journeys across multiple channels. Apply strategic and effective design thinking on specific projects. Balancing user needs and stakeholder goals to design the services and products that UKHSA supports.
• You will work with the Head of User Centred Design (HUCD) to define UKHSA’s approach to service design; creating the right environment to establish the design profession within UKHSA, ensuring your team can flourish and promoting a user-centred approach to service design and improvement across end-to-end health protection services, leading your team to design stand out, equitable and inclusive services, and transforming organisational culture.
• You will report to the HUCD and as a member of the User-Centred Design senior team, you will embody transformational and inclusive leadership
• Represent UKHSA’s service design capability across government, NHS and the wider public health system.
• Undertake the full range of line management responsibilities as well as providing coaching and support to staff across UKHSA; proactively develop, promote and monitor staff engagement and wellbeing measures, striving to make improvements, year on year.
• Deliver, influence and shape best in class digital and non-digital products and services. Ensuring design work is of a high quality and meets accessibility and inclusivity requirements - defining standards, prioritising improvements, and providing constructive feedback on designers’ work

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Significant experience of working at a senior level within a service and/or interaction design role and of using UCD methods and practices in large, complex organisations, with a good understanding of the key standards to be addressed in their application and assuring the quality of design delivery.
• Proven track record in navigating complex stakeholder landscapes, leading and managing relationships with a variety of senior internal and external stakeholders, including the ability to work across boundaries to influence and gain the confidence of senior leaders for service improvements
• Experience leading and planning the work of others across multiple strands of work, working directly with other professions to ensure effective and timely delivery
• Proven leadership and line management skills with track record of embedding design standards, governance and assurance mechanisms
• Able to use research and data to negotiate design decisions and guide the strategic direction of services and products, designing and iterating customer journeys, products and services across multiple channels. You can be accountable for design decisions.
• Able to explain the value and practice of service and/or interaction design, and design ideas and concepts, in a way that other people understand

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of guiding teams to/designing services that meet the government and/or NHS service standard - including experience of being assessed or assessing government services against the standard
• Able to coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach for the team to take and evaluating this through the life of a project. Able to think of new and innovative ways of working to achieve the right outcomes
• Knowledge of the barriers to access which affect participation in public health interventions, able to demonstrate the importance of designing inclusive, equitable, accessible and sustainable public services, with understanding of best in class in inclusive service design

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £51,824, UK Health Security Agency contributes £13,992 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

Selection process

This vacancy is using Success Profiles, and will assess your Behaviours, Experience and Technical skills.

Stage 1: Application & Sift

You will be required to complete an application form. You will be assessed on essential criteria, and this will be in the form of a:

• CV/ Application form (‘Employer/ Activity history’ section on the application) 
• 750 word Statement of Suitability.

This should outline how you consider your skills, experience, and knowledge, provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with reference to the essential criteria.

The CV and Statement of Suitability will be marked together.

If you are successful at this stage, you will progress to interview & assessment.

Depending on how many applications we get, we might include a pre-sift on the CV or include an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise. 

Please do not exceed 750 words for the Statement of Suitability. We will not consider any words over and above this number.

Feedback will not be provided at this stage.

Stage 2: Interview

You will be invited to a 60 minute remote video interview. This may include a presentation on your understanding of UCD, to help us understand more about you and your skills and experience.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles  to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity.

We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

For this role we’ll be assessing you against the following Success Profiles - Civil Service Behaviours:

• Changing and improving 
• Working together
• Making effective decisions

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework and candidates should expect questions on the following skills during the interview:

• Agile practices
• Evidence and context-based design
• Leadership and guidance
• User focus

Interviews will be held week commencing 24th June 2024. Please note, these dates are subject to change. Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Eligibility Criteria

Open to all external applicants (anyone) from outside the Civil Service (including by definition internal applicants).

Disability Confident scheme  
 
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Reserve List  

Candidates who pass the interview criteria but are not offered a post will be kept on a reserve list for 12 months and may be contacted if similar roles become available. If you are interviewed for the post and do not meet the required threshold for the specified grade, your application may be assessed against a similar, lower grade role and you may be offered the post should one be available.

Starting salary  

Entrants to the Civil Service are expected to start on the minimum of the pay band.    

The internal roles rules apply to existing Civil Servants, i.e. level transfers move on current salary or the pay range minimum, transfers on promotion move to new pay range minimum or receive 10% increase.    Either case is determined by whichever is the highest.   

For further details please refer to the Information Sheet- Starting Salaries & Benefits attachment .

Location information 
UKHSA operates a hybrid working model where business needs allow.  This provides us with greater flexibility about how and where we work, to get the best from our workforce. As a hybrid worker, you will be expected to spend a minimum of 60% of your contractual working hours (approximately 3 days a week pro rata,(averaged over a month) working at one of UKHSA's locations (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and London).  Specialist or regional roles will be based at the appropriate UKHSA site. 

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.