Technical Writer

Manchester Digital; Manchester, Bristol, London; Hybrid; GBP 56,000 - 62,000; Full time

Job description

£61,740 - £70,219 (London) / £56,070 - £61,793 (National) Based on capability
Published on 9 April 2025 Deadline 28 April 2025

The Government Digital Service (GDS) is the digital centre of government. We are responsible for setting, leading and delivering the vision for a modern digital government.

Our priorities are to drive a modern digital government, by:

• joining up public sector services
• harnessing the power of AI for the public good
• strengthening and extending our digital and data public infrastructure
• elevating leadership and investing in talent
• funding for outcomes and procuring for growth and innovation
• committing to transparency and driving accountability

We are home to the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (I.AI), the world-leading GOV.UK and at the forefront of coordinating the UK’s geospatial strategy and activity. We lead the Government Digital and Data function and champion the work of digital teams across government.

We’re part of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and employ more than 1,000 people all over the UK, with hubs in Manchester, London and Bristol.

The Government Digital Service is where talent translates into impact. From your first day, you’ll be working with some of the world’s most highly-skilled digital professionals, all contributing their knowledge to make change on a national scale.

Join us for rewarding work that makes a difference across the UK. You'll solve some of the nation’s highest-priority digital challenges, helping millions of people access services they need.

We are designing and building GOV.UK One Login, a simple, safe, and secure way for people to prove who they are and access government services.

We’re also designing and building GOV.UK Wallet, an app for people to save government-issued documents to their phone, so they can show them to prove things when useful.

GOV.UK One Login and GOV.UK Wallet are being made for everyone, to be accessible, inclusive, safe, and easy to use.

We’re an ambitious team at the heart of government, full of talented and passionate people. If you’d like to join us in this work, we’d love to hear from you.

As a technical writer in GOV.UK One Login, you will create and manage user-centred technical content for technical teams in government who integrate and use our services.

You will work with user-centred design (UCD) colleagues and subject matter experts to get an in-depth understanding of technical details and system behaviour. You will design information to meet user needs and write in plain English. You will use docs-as-code workflows and work in an agile development environment.

You will be part of a central UCD team working across multidisciplinary delivery teams in the One Login programme to understand user needs and deliver accurate, accessible technical content.

You will:

• design, manage and improve technical documentation for technologists inside government, including API documentation
• work with technology experts and stakeholders to get an in-depth understanding of technical details and system behaviour
• write technical content in GOV.UK style and plain English
• work with other technical writers and content designers to make sure documentation is consistent and coherent across multiple user journeys
• understand user journeys and information architecture principles so you can structure and present information effectively and sustainably
• follow our review and quality assurance processes and review your own and others’ work
• advocate for user-centred design practices and starting with user needs in all technical writing work
• showcase your work and help promote technical writing as a discipline in the GOV.UK One Login programme, in GDS and across government

Person specification

We’re interested in people who have:

• experience writing technical documentation for digital services or software, including API documentation
• experience in using development tools and workflows to collaborate with developers on documentation, for example Git, GitHub and a ‘docs as code’ approach
• excellent writing skills and knowledge of plain English
• the ability to write and structure documentation to meet user needs
• strong interpersonal skills, both written and verbal, and the ability to extract knowledge from subject matter experts
• the ability to work in a fast-paced environment and deliver to deadlines while coordinating work across distributed teams
• confidence to showcase your work, challenge poor documentation practices, and provide and receive positive and constructive feedback

The benefits of working at GDS

There are many benefits of working at GDS, including:

• flexible hybrid working with flexi-time and the option to work part-time or condensed hours
• a Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
• 25 days of annual leave, increasing by a day each year up to a maximum of 30 days
• an extra day off for The King’s birthday
• an in-year bonus scheme to recognise high performance
• career progression and coaching, including a training budget for personal development
• a focus on wellbeing with access to an employee assistance programme
• job satisfaction from making government services easier to use and more inclusive for people across the UK
• advances on pay, including for travel season tickets
• cycle to work scheme and facilities
• access to children's holiday play schemes across different locations in central London
• access to an employee discounts scheme
• 10 learning days per year
• volunteering opportunities (5 special leave days per year)
• access to a suite of learning activities through Civil Service learning

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

Things you need to know

The standard selection process for roles at GDS consists of:

• a simple application screening process - We only ask for a CV and cover letter of up to 1,000 words. Important tip - please ensure that your cover letter includes how you meet the skills and experience listed in the “person specification” section above
• a written exercise which will be made available to shortlisted candidates

Depending on how many applications we get, there might also be an extra stage before the video interview, for example a phone interview or a technical exercise.

In order to assist candidates with this role, we will be holding a virtual recruitment event on Thursday 24th April at 2:00pm - 3:00pm to go through the role in more detail. If you are interested in joining this event please e-mail: [e-mail] and a member of the team will send you an invitation to the event.

While we value the use of AI technology to enhance our daily work, we also value the personal touch and urge applicants to write cover letters without the use of AI to emphasise their own unique experiences.

In the Civil Service, we use Success Profiles to evaluate your skills and ability. This gives us the best possible chance of finding the right person for the job, increases performance and improves diversity and inclusivity. We’ll be assessing your technical abilities, skills, experience and behaviours that are relevant to this role.

We’ll also be assessing your experience and specialist technical skills against the following skills defined in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework for the Technical Writer role:

• Prototyping
• Stakeholder relationship management
• Strategic thinking
• Technical understanding (user-centred design)

Recruitment Timeline

Virtual session: Thursday 24th April

Sift completion: Tuesday 29th April

Written exercise: to be sent out Wednesday 30th April

Panel interviews: Thursday 15th May to Thursday 22nd May

Candidates that do not pass the interview but have demonstrated an acceptable standard may be considered for similar roles at a lower grade.

A reserve list will be held for a period of 12 months, from which further appointments can be made.

Please note that this role requires SC clearance, which would normally need 5 years’ UK residency in the past 5 years. This is not an absolute requirement, but supplementary checks may be needed where individuals have not lived in the UK for that period. This may mean your security clearance (and therefore your appointment) will take longer or, in some cases, not be possible.

For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional job offers.

Other information

In January 2025, it was announced that the Government Digital Service (GDS) will move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as a part of a machinery of government change. This change aims to bring together the digital transformation of public services into one central department, presenting exciting opportunities and positioning DSIT to lead the government’s digital agenda.

This role is in scope to transfer to DSIT when the machinery of government change takes place. As a result, if you are successful and appointed by Cabinet Office to this role before 1st June 2025, your role will transfer from Cabinet Office to DSIT at the time of the relevant machinery of government change taking place. If your start date is after 1 June 2025, you will be appointed direct to DSIT and your appointment will be unaffected by the machinery of government change. We are currently consulting with our Trade Unions on which policies, terms and conditions will apply on transfer. The statement of changes applied to all other Cabinet Office staff will also apply to you if you are successful.

We encourage you to apply and look forward to reviewing your application. We will keep you updated throughout the process.

Sponsorship

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.