Senior Public Sector Service Designer

Sanderson Government and Defence; Cardiff; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson Government and Defence is seeking a Senior Service Designer to lead service design workstreams across large public sector programmes. You will shape innovative, user-centred services and ensure outputs meet accessibility and policy standards.

Working within multidisciplinary teams, you will mentor colleagues, contribute to propositions, and help grow the service design capability while staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years' experience designing services and products.
• Proven experience leading service design workstreams across multiple projects.
• Strong expertise in Government Digital Service (GDS) standards and service assessments.
• Experience selecting and tailoring service design methods to client requirements and organisational maturity.
• Strong workshop facilitation and design sprint experience.
• Ability to simplify and solve complex problems in fast-paced environments.
• Excellent storytelling and communication skills with a broad range of stakeholders.
• Experience working within agile, cross-functional teams alongside researchers, designers, business analysts, product owners, delivery managers and developers.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and work proactively under tight timescales.
• Experience engaging with legal, policy and other specialist teams to drive service and design decisions.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end service design activities from ideation through to solution development and testing.
• Define and tailor service design approaches, methods and outputs to meet client needs and levels of design maturity.
• Develop and oversee high-quality service design artefacts, ensuring consistency and impact.
• Apply expertise in Government Digital Service (GDS) standards, accessibility and inclusive design to support successful service assessments.
• Facilitate workshops, co-design sessions and stakeholder engagement activities.
• Communicate complex ideas through clear storytelling and visualisation techniques.
• Manage stakeholders effectively, balancing competing perspectives while advocating for user-centred design.
• Identify and manage priorities, risks, dependencies and delivery requirements.
• Mentor and support junior colleagues, delegating responsibilities where appropriate.
• Contribute to the development of service design tools, methods and propositions by staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies.

Skills

Service design

Leadership

GDS standards

Workshop facilitation

Stakeholder management

Storytelling

Agile teams

User-centred design

Problem solving

Communication

Job description

Sanderson Government and Defence is seeking a Senior Service Designer to lead service design workstreams across large public sector programmes. You will shape innovative, user-centred services and ensure outputs meet accessibility and policy standards.

Working within multidisciplinary teams, you will mentor colleagues, contribute to propositions, and help grow the service design capability while staying current with industry trends and emerging technologies.