Senior Service Designer — Public Sector Transformation

Sanderson Government and Defence; Woking; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson Government and Defence is hiring a Senior Service Designer to lead discovery-to-delivery service design for public sector programmes. You will own the design approach, deliver artefacts, and mentor junior colleagues within multidisciplinary teams to ensure user-centred outcomes aligned with client objectives.

The role requires active SC clearance, strong facilitation skills and a track record of delivering complex, accessible services in fast-paced environments.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years' experience designing services and products.
• Proven experience leading service design workstreams across multiple projects or clients with minimal supervision.
• Strong expertise in Government Digital Service (GDS) standards and principles, including experience supporting and passing service assessments.
• Experience selecting and tailoring service design methods, approaches and artefacts to suit 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 various roles.
• 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.
• Flexibility to support activities across wider user-centred design disciplines or project delivery where needed.
• Ability to showcase examples of service design work and demonstrate your design process through artefacts and outcomes.

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

Agile teams

Stakeholder management

Communication

Problem solving

Mentoring

Design thinking

Job description

Sanderson Government and Defence is hiring a Senior Service Designer to lead discovery-to-delivery service design for public sector programmes. You will own the design approach, deliver artefacts, and mentor junior colleagues within multidisciplinary teams to ensure user-centred outcomes aligned with client objectives.

The role requires active SC clearance, strong facilitation skills and a track record of delivering complex, accessible services in fast-paced environments.