Lead Service Designer

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); Leeds; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A public sector organisation is seeking a Senior Service Designer to lead the design and delivery of effective public services. The ideal candidate will leverage Service Design principles to improve service efficiency and accessibility, engage with stakeholders, and mentor junior designers. This role will require a proactive approach to problem-solving and the ability to communicate complex design strategies effectively. Benefits include flexible working hours and 30 days of paid annual leave.

Benefits

30 days Holiday

Flexible Working Hours

Remote Working

Paid counselling

Qualifications

• Expert practitioners in Service Design with a strong grasp of core tools.
• Proven ability to influence clients and stakeholders.
• Experience mapping user journeys and identifying service improvement opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Ensure successful design and delivery of public services.
• Facilitate design processes and communicate with senior stakeholders.
• Prototype and test seamless services to meet user needs.

Skills

Service Design expertise

Experience with Service Blueprints

Prototyping tools (Figma)

Coaching and mentoring

Tools

Service Blueprints

Ecosystem Maps

Stakeholder Maps

Job description

Senior Service Designers at Made Tech are expert practitioners who specialise in understanding, designing, and improving end‑to‑end public services. We are looking for an expert who can operate strategically and tactically across the full‑service lifecycle, from initial policy intent to digital delivery and organisational change. Success in this role means using a systemic, Service Design approach to deliver positive, measurable outcomes for citizens and the public sector. Made Tech wants to positively impact the country's future by using technology to improve society. We believe a Service Design‑led approach is crucial for creating positive outcomes in the public sector, ensuring critical service‑enabled by technology‑are cohesive, accessible, and efficient across all channels. You will be instrumental in maturing our community of designers and researchers to meet the growing demand for systemic, service‑led delivery.

About the role

Senior Service Designers are expert Service Practitioners able to develop new and novel, service‑centred approaches to highly complex challenges, based on fundamental design and public service principles. We expect the role holder to be a strategic thinker able to facilitate conversations with senior stakeholders to build understanding and alignment and help deliver intended outcomes and impact. Take the initiative and be fully responsible for defining the Service Design approach from first principles, proposing alternative ways to deliver complex service improvements. Define what “good” end‑to‑end service design looks like on an engagement, enabling and holding cross‑functional teams to account for producing high‑quality service maps, blueprints, and deliverables, measuring the impact of your designs. Comfortable with owning a problem and committed to seeing the service improvement through to resolution. Actively look to deliver a positive service outcome, using data and research insights to influence wider organisational or policy change. Collaborative and Communicative: Candid‑but‑kind Communicators that give and receive feedback often, comfortable having difficult conversations about policy, organisational constraints, or service blockers to drive service improvements. Growth Mindset: Always willing to learn and develop, bringing new approaches and thinking into our Service Design community.

Key Responsibilities

• Assure the successful design and delivery of public services by applying a holistic Service Design lens across technology, policy, process, and organisation.
• Build service design maturity, facilitating the design process, communicating complex service decisions to teams, and setting strategic expectations with senior stakeholders.
• Design, prototype and test seamless (online and offline) services, ensuring all organisational, service, and user outcomes are aligned.
• Champion the practice across Made Tech through CoP participation, development and delivery of training/briefings, providing coaching and mentoring support.
• Build trust with clients by demonstrating the value of a Service Design approach and understanding their strategic needs for service improvement.
• Support the commercial team to win new work by contributing strategic Service Design thinking and reviewing bids related to service transformation and user‑centred design (UCD).
• Represent and advocate for user‑centred Service Design publicly and internally through talks, blogs, and case studies, contributing to the definition of Made Tech’s Service Design principles.
• Take an active role in the Service Design community, leading on developing and sharing good practice, and actively supporting the hiring and retention of expert Service Designers.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

• Service Design expertise: using core Service Design tools, including but not limited to Service Blueprints, Ecosystem Maps, and Stakeholder Maps, as well as prototyping tools like Figma and the GOV.UK prototyping kit.
• Experience of championing the value and practice of Service Design internally and externally, influencing clients, partners, and peers on its contribution.
• Able to coach and mentor other designers, defining and setting the Service Design standards which others will apply across our engagements.
• Lead activities to map the existing service landscape, identify user and business needs, and create a shared, cross‑organisational understanding of the problems to solve.
• Map and prototype end‑to‑end service experiences, clearly articulating user journeys, touchpoints (digital and non‑digital), front‑stage interactions, and back‑stage processes using Service Blueprints.
• Make public services simple to explain, understand, and use by removing unnecessary complexity and keeping designs focused on creating positive outcomes for people and society (internal and external users).
• Ensure designs consider the entire service system, understanding the relationship between digital interfaces, policy, operations, and the overall client organisational requirements.

Consulting

Takes responsibility for understanding client ambitions, collecting insight, delivering analysis and problem resolution. Identifies, evaluates and recommends options. Collaborates with, and facilitates stakeholder groups, as part of formal or informal consultancy agreements. Seeks to fully address client needs and implements solutions if required. Enhances the capabilities and effectiveness of clients, by ensuring that proposed solutions are fully understood and appropriately exploited.

Key Measures

Case studies demonstrating the successful application of Service Design to deliver good public services and measurable service outcomes. Positive impact on the growth, capability, and happiness of the Service Design community at Made Tech. Successful definition and delivery of service improvement objectives on time and to the expected quality standard.

Job Benefits

Here are some of our most popular benefits listed below:

• 30 days Holiday – 30 days of paid annual leave plus bank holidays
• Flexible Working Hours – we are flexible with what hours you work
• Flexible Parental Leave – we offer flexible parental leave options
• Remote Working – we offer part‑time remote working for all our staff
• Paid counselling – we offer paid counselling as well as financial and legal advice

If successful, you will be required to undertake an SC clearance.