Lead Service Designer

Met Office; Exeter; On-site; GBP 68,000 - 83,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Civil Service pension

Market supplement £3,800 per year (RRA

Annual leave 27.5–32.5 days + BH

Job summary

Met Office is seeking a Lead Service Designer to transform how services are designed and delivered, placing user needs at the heart of every decision. You will influence senior stakeholders and guide cross-disciplinary teams toward end-to-end, evidence-based services that align with government and public needs.

You will mentor colleagues, foster inclusive and sustainable design practices, and drive continuous improvement across complex service lines, shaping the future of weather and climate

Qualifications

• Lead strategic design to transform services with a customer-centric approach.
• Communicate design strategy across organizational boundaries and gain senior support.
• Champion inclusive, accessible and sustainable design.
• Plan and run sessions with senior stakeholders to uncover user needs.
• Use hypothesis-driven design to develop service blueprints and journeys.
• Embed iterative design and agile practices across teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the transition, design and continuous improvement of complex service lines, ensuring user-centred, evidence-based services.
• Provide strategic direction and leadership across multidisciplinary teams, embedding design standards.
• Influence senior stakeholders using user insights to guide decisions and meet real user needs.
• Develop service strategies, blueprints, and user journeys for end-to-end services.
• Mentor colleagues to grow user-centred design capability and promote inclusive practices.

Skills

Strategic design

Design communication

Inclusive design

Co-creation with leaders

Evidence-based design

Iterative design

Job description

The following content displays a map of the jobs location - Exeter

We’re looking for a Lead Service Designer to help us make a difference to our planet.

This job may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in the office and part of the week from home.This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and the location advertised will be your contractual place of work.

Our opportunity is full time, 37 hours per week, but we would also consider applicants wishing to work a minimum of 30 hours per week and we will also try our best to consider those intending to work a jobshare. Our people are at the heart of what we do and we\'ll do our best toagreea working pattern that works for everyone.

World changing work

From science to technology, from meteorology to management, and from planning to communication, our expertise helps us stand out as the authority on weather accuracy and climate prediction. We help individuals, industries and government to make better decisions to stay safe and thrive. This is the Met Office. This is who we are.

• We’reaforcefor good - focusing on our environmental and socialimpact
• We’reexperts by nature - always learning and developing to do thingsbetter
• We live and breathe it - putting our purpose at the heart ofdecision-making
• We’rebettertogether-understandingpartnerships and inclusivity make usgreater
• We keep evolving - pushing boundaries to make tomorrow better for ourcustomers

Your world of expertise

As aLead Service Designer, you’ll play a pivotal role in transforming how the Met Office designs and delivers services, ensuring user needs are at the heart of everydecision. Working within a multidisciplinary team alongside a Service Owner, you’lllead our transition from a complex product portfolio to best-in-class end-to-end services. You will influence senior stakeholders and help embed a user-centred, evidence-based culture that delivers meaningful outcomes for government, industry and the public.

• Lead the transition, design and continuous improvement of complex service lines, ensuring services are user-centred, evidence-based and aligned to our customer-centric Met Office strategy.
• Provide strategic direction, quality assurance and leadership across multidisciplinary teams, embedding best practice service design approaches and standards.
• Influence andchallenge senior stakeholders, using user insight and evidence to guidedecision-making and ensure services meet genuine user needs.
• Develop service strategies, service blueprints, user journeys and other service design artefacts that shape the delivery of effective end-to-end services.
• Champion and grow user-centred design across the organisation by mentoring colleagues, improving service design capability, and promotinginclusive, accessible and sustainable design practices

Our work is life-changing, often life-saving and always life-enhancing.The Met Office is Great Place to Work UK certified. We are also featured on their‘Best Workplaces in Tech’2023, 2024 and 2025 lists, as well as their’54 Best Workplaces for Women’2023 list.

Your total reward package will be up to £75,857 annually, which includes:

• An outstanding Civil Service pension, with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
• Recruitment Retention Allowance(RRA)you will be paid £3,800 per annum as a market supplement to reflect the demand for your skills. Whilst in post, you will be paid this marketdrivenallowance from April 2026 until March 2027 in your monthly pay.
• Annual Leave starting at 27.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) rising to 32.5 days (plus Bank Holidays) after 5 years andoptionto buy or sell up to 5 days per year of annualleave.

Essential Criteria, skills and experience:

• Leading strategic design (Lead Criteria): You are an expert by nature in defining the purpose, impact and stages of transforming an organisation to deliver best-in-class services, aligned with a customer-centric corporate strategy . You can evidence how you have used risks, opportunities, and constraints in technology and systems to shape your design work to improve experiences and meet user needs.
• Design communication: You have experience communicating design strategy across organisational boundaries. You have gained support for design decisions from senior leaders and advocated a user-centred design approach. You can demonstrate how you keep evolving organisations by introducing effective methods for communicating about services and coaching others in how to be more user centred.
• Designing for everyone: You have experience championing and improving the practices of inclusive, accessible and environmentally sustainable design against measurable criteria. You demonstrate how you are a force for goodby ensuring teams designinclusive services that work for everyone.
• Designingtogether: You can demonstrate how you work bettertogether by effectively planning and running sessions with senior leaders and stakeholders around the organisation to learn about user needs and user-centred design practices. You can coach other designers in how to involve stakeholders of any level in the design process and grow the understanding of service design within an organisation.
• Evidence-based design: Youlive and breathe hypothesis-driven design and can guide organisations in how to use validated user evidence to establish and improve services. You have experience developing service blueprints, user journeys and other service design artefacts that shape the delivery of effective end-to-end services . You are adept at analysing, synthesising and using evidence to ensure user insights are acted upon.
• Iterative design: You have embedded the practice of iterative design and agile working and helped teams adapt quickly to changes in requirements, priorities, and user needs. You can iterate delivery processes and advise on team structures to enable the effective delivery of services aligning to best practice service design approaches and recognised standards.

The panel may perform a preliminary sift of thelead criteria as indicated above.

Using AI in your application

We welcome applications that use AI tools for support in drafting or refining, as long as they accurately reflect your own skills and experience. All hiring decisions at the Met Office are made by people, not AI. For more details, visit our approach to recruitment .

How we can help

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please contact us at [e-mail] .

If you’re considering applying and need support to do so, you can request adjustments either within your application or by contacting us.Should you be offered an interview, please be aware there may be a selection exercise which could include a presentation, written test or a scenario-based activity. You can select in your application to be considered under the DisabilityConfidentScheme. To be invited to interview/assessment under this scheme, your application must meet the essential criteria for the role.

Weunderstand that great minds don’t always think alike and as an equal opportunities employer we welcome applications from those with all protected characteristics. We recruit on merit, fairness, and open competition in line with the Civil Service Code.

We can only accept applications from those eligible to live and work in the UK - please refer to GOV.UK for information.We require Security clearance, for which you need to have resided in the UK for at least 3 of the last 5 years to be eligible, 2 of these years must be immediately preceding the point of your application. You will need to achieve full security clearance prior to starting with us.

You will need full Security Check Clearance for this role. Although its not an essential requirement for this post, we may require Service Designers to have or be able to attain a successful Developed Vetting clearance in the future. You can find out more about the clearance process at United Kingdom Security Vetting - GOV.UK

If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the Recruitment Principles, and wish to make a complaint, then in the first instance you should contact us at: [e-mail] If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission at: [e-mail]