As a Lead Service Designer, youll shape the future of Universal Credit by aligning emerging policy and business strategy with user needs. Working closely with Lead Product Managers and the Product Strategy team, youll help evolve the service to better support millions of users. Youll champion collaboration across digital, policy, legal and other teams, ensuring services are designed with people at the heart. Youll be a confident facilitator and expert practitioner, advocating for user-centred design and driving improvements that deliver real outcomes. What youll do: Lead service design for Universal Credit, aligning user needs with departmental objectives, policy outcomes and product strategy. lead and facilitate collaboration across teams and programmes to define and evidence led service design concepts. Engage senior stakeholders and influence decision-making and alignment at programme and departmental level. Produce high-quality service design artefacts to communicate your approaches, ideas and recommendations Promote best practice and build a strong, open design culture across the teams you work with. Mentor designers and support capability building within the service design community. Contribute to recruitment and development of the DWP Service design team. This is a leadership role where youll set direction, guide teams and help embed service design across the organisation. If youre passionate about designing services that truly meet peoples needs, wed love to hear from you. Person specification When giving details in your employment history and personal statement you should highlight your experience in line withessential criteriabelow: Lead criterion: Have significant experience of hands-on service design. Provide leadership and expertise to develop end-to-end, front-to-back services using wider Government principles and evidence that meet citizen and colleague needs as well as department objectives. Be comfortable influencing and communicating to a wide range of senior and other stakeholders on the value of user centricity, your strategies, approaches and decisions. Lead on the creation and maintenance of a positive and collaborative working environment across departmental and cross-government boundaries. If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Akhtar.ali1@dwp.gov.uk Benefits We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes: Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours. Generous annual leave at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (prorata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave. Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme. Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly). Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 years continuous service. Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes. An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Womens Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more. This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post. Salary Information Pay for this role in London is from 78,843 to 83,957. Pay for this role in national locations is 72,664 to 77,740. Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview. Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current salary. Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will either move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or get a 10% increase to their current salary whichever would be the greater. Things you need to know Selection process details Stage 1: Application Your application will consist of three parts: 1. A Personal Details application form. 2. Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed based on the essential criteria. 3. Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria listed in the Person specification. The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria. An initial sift will be conducted using the lead criterion. Candidates who pass the initial sift will be progressed to a full sift. You will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your CV and Personal Statement. For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital. Important Information You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form. Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered. If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will be withdrawn. Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application; however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own), applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. A candidates guide to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment. Stage 2: Interview If youre successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria. You will be asked to do a 10 minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview. Interviews will take place from early October 2025. Interview dates to be confirmed. Other information: If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards. All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location. For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed. Further information Find out more about Working for DWP A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location. The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action. Reasonable Adjustment At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia. If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the Reasonable Adjustments section in the Additional requirements page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if youre deaf, a Language Service Professional For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How We Recruit, page 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. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window). Apply and further information This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative. The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window). Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records. Contact point for applicants Job contact : Name : Akhtar Ali Email : Akhtar.ali1@dwp.gov.uk Recruitment team Email : digitialrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk Further information Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/. Attachments DWP Terms and Conditions January 2024 Opens in new window (docx, 17kB) Success-Profiles-Candidate-Overview-Accessble-Version Opens in new window (docx, 67kB)