Senior Service Designer: Public Sector Transformation Lead

Sanderson Government and Defence; High Wycombe; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Sanderson Government and Defence is seeking a Senior Service Designer to lead service design workstreams from discovery to delivery on public sector programmes. You will shape innovative, user-centred services and work with multidisciplinary teams to ensure outcomes align with policy and accessibility standards.

You will mentor colleagues, contribute to capability development, and help win proposals while applying Government Digital Service (GDS) guidelines and inclusive design practices across

Qualifications

• Minimum 5 years designing services and products.
• Experience leading service design workstreams across multiple projects.
• Strong knowledge of Government Digital Service (GDS) standards and passing service assessments.
• Ability to tailor service design methods to client requirements and organisational maturity.
• Strong workshop facilitation and design sprint experience.
• Excellent storytelling and communication skills with a broad range of stakeholders.
• Experience working within agile, cross-functional teams alongside researchers, designers 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.
• Flexibility to support activities across wider user-centred design disciplines or project delivery.

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

5+ years experience

Service design leadership

GDS standards

Tailor methods

Workshop facilitation

Complex problem solving

Storytelling

Agile teams

Priorities management

Policy engagement

Cross-disciplinary

Design artefacts

Job description

Sanderson Government and Defence is seeking a Senior Service Designer to lead service design workstreams from discovery to delivery on public sector programmes. You will shape innovative, user-centred services and work with multidisciplinary teams to ensure outcomes align with policy and accessibility standards.

You will mentor colleagues, contribute to capability development, and help win proposals while applying Government Digital Service (GDS) guidelines and inclusive design practices across