Accessible Design Officer

We Manage Jobs(WMJobs); Birmingham; Hybrid; GBP 42,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

WMCA is hiring a Digital Accessibility Specialist to champion inclusive design across our communications and digital services for the West Midlands.

You will translate WCAG guidance into practical actions, audit outputs, and mentor designers and teams, influencing major programmes and campaigns.

This hybrid role is based at 16 Summer Lane with two in-office days weekly; a deep knowledge of accessibility standards and assistive technologies is essential.

Qualifications

• Demonstrable experience leading automated and manual testing with assistive technologies.
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Responsibilities

• Lead development and implementation of an accessibility strategy for the organisation’s communications

Skills

Automated testing

Manual testing

Assistive technologies

WCAG

HTML

CSS

JavaScript

WAI-ARIA

Stakeholder influence

Project management

Tools

Acquia Web Governance

Job description

Help us make the West Midlands more accessible for everyone.

This is a brand-new role with the opportunity to make a real and lasting difference to how people across the West Midlands experience and access our services, information and campaigns.

As our Digital Accessibility Specialist, you’ll be the organisation’s accessibility champion for communications and digital services, providing expert advice and guidance across Communications and the wider WMCA. You’ll help us go beyond simply meeting our legal obligations, ensuring our digital and offline communications are accessible, inclusive and designed with the widest possible audience in mind. Working across multidisciplinary teams, you’ll shape accessibility best practice across our channels – from websites, social media and digital content to marketing campaigns, visual design and offline communications.

A key part of the role will be your expertise in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). You’ll translate complex technical standards and accessibility regulations into practical, meaningful guidance, helping colleagues and suppliers understand what good accessibility looks like in practice. You’ll also provide expert review and challenge of digital, design and communications outputs, ensuring they work for as many people as possible while contributing to major programmes and projects, including bus franchising, our websites and engagement activity.

This is a specialist role with significant influence and genuine scope to make it your own. We’re looking for someone with strong knowledge of accessibility regulations, a deep understanding of user needs and the empathy to consider the experiences of people with different accessibility requirements.

What you will be doing

• Lead development and implementation of an accessibility strategy for the organisation’s communications
• Regularly share knowledge on accessibility best practice, including updates to WCAG
• Advocate for disabled people with communications and digital projects
• Provide informal mentorship on accessibility best practice to Designers and other Communications specialist teams
• Shape and manage organisational wide accessibility training
• Work with People and Culture services to ensure recruitment templates, adverts and application processes are accessible and engaging
• Build test plans, considering automated and manual testing methodologies, to audit communications outputs and digital experiences for accessibility compliance
• Define and manage a regular audit schedule for the WMCA digital estate
• Work with Designers to help shape user research activity, ensuring we meet the real needs of our residents and partners
• Use quality assurance tools (such as Acquia Web Governance) to identify and action issues on owned websites
• Procure and manage relationships with external digital accessibility auditors

What’s essential

• Demonstratable experience in leading automated and manual testing using assistive technologies
• Previous experience in an accessibility focused role, or able to demonstrate broad lived experience and understanding
• Expert knowledge of existing and emerging accessibility guidelines and standards, particularly WCAG
• Understanding of web technologies – HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WAI-ARIA
• Ability to manage projects with competing deadlines
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Ability to positively influence stakeholders of all levels
• Knowledge of testing with a range of assistive technologies, such as screen readers, speech recognition and magnification tools

Location.

The location for this role is 16 Summer Lane with at least 2 days a week spent in the office, Wednesday's and Thursday's.

Salary and benefits.

We advertise salary ranges, with new appointments typically starting at the lowest salary point. In exceptional cases, the salary point may be adjusted to secure the best candidate. This approach allows for potential year-on-year salary increases, offering progression and appropriate rewards to employees. Requests for salaries above the maximum advertised range will not be considered.