These roles may be located in one of the following locations; Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle-upon-Tyne or Sheffield
Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.
Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, this role will be based at Benton Park View from September 2025, and then at 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027.
Job Summary
Are you passionate about designing services that support millions across the UK?
Interested in driving some of the country’s most significant transformational changes?
If so, this could be the role for you!
At DWP Digital & Transformation, we offer meaningful careers for those who want to use their skills to improve lives. As part of the UK’s largest government department, we deliver vital services, support and payments to people at key moments.
We’re looking for a Lead Service Designer to help shape the future of DWP services. You’ll work with design teams and stakeholders to explore problems, test ideas and deliver better outcomes for users.
We’re seeking confident facilitators who can unite teams, provide clarity, and foster collaboration. Experience of working with policy and strategy teams is especially valuable.
You’ll join a supportive community of user-centred design professionals, committed to accessibility and excellence. As a Lead Service Designer, you’ll also mentor others and help grow our service design capability.
Job Description
As a Lead Service Designer, you’ll shape the future of DWP services by aligning emerging policy and business strategy with user needs, evolving services to better support millions of users.
You’ll champion collaboration across digital, policy, legal and other teams, ensuring services are designed with people at the heart.
You’ll be a confident facilitator and expert practitioner, advocating for user-centred design and driving improvements that deliver real outcomes.
What You’ll Do:
- Lead service design, aligning user needs with policy, service and product strategy.
- Facilitate collaboration across departments to define and deliver effective user journeys.
- Engage senior stakeholders and influence decision-making at departmental level.
- Produce high-quality design outputs including journey maps, experience maps, service blueprints and user flows.
- Analyse research and data to identify pain points and improvement opportunities.
- Use prototyping to test ideas and communicate concepts with users.
- Promote best practice and build a strong, open design culture across the Department.
- Mentor designers and support capability building within the service design community.
- Contribute to recruitment and development of the DWP Digital design team.
This is a leadership role where you’ll set direction, guide teams and help embed service design across the organisation. If you’re passionate about designing services that truly meet people’s needs, we’d love to hear from you.
As a Lead Service Designer, you’ll shape the future of DWP services by aligning emerging policy and business strategy with user needs, evolving services to better support millions of users.
You’ll champion collaboration across digital, policy, legal and other teams, ensuring services are designed with people at the heart.
You’ll be a confident facilitator and expert practitioner, advocating for user-centred design and driving improvements that deliver real outcomes.
What You’ll Do:
- Lead service design, aligning user needs with policy, service and product strategy.
- Facilitate collaboration across departments to define and deliver effective user journeys.
- Engage senior stakeholders and influence decision-making at departmental level.
- Produce high-quality design outputs including journey maps, experience maps, service blueprints and user flows.
- Analyse research and data to identify pain points and improvement opportunities.
- Use prototyping to test ideas and communicate concepts with users.
- Promote best practice and build a strong, open design culture across the Department.
- Mentor designers and support capability building within the service design community.
- Contribute to recruitment and development of the DWP Digital design team.
This is a leadership role where you’ll set direction, guide teams and help embed service design across the organisation. If you’re passionate about designing services that truly meet people’s needs, we’d love to hear from you.
Person specification
When Giving Details In Your Employment History And Personal Statement You Should Highlight Your Experience In Line With Essential Criteria Below:
- Lead criterion: Have significant experience leading the design of end-to-end, front-to-back services which solve complex problems.
- Provide expertise and best-practice at programme level to design evidence-based services that meet user needs, colleague needs and organisation objectives, and achieve service outcomes.
- Be comfortable communicating to a wide range of colleagues, advocating for user centricity, and influencing senior stakeholders on the value of service design, your strategies, approaches and decisions.
- Lead on the creation and maintenance of a positive and collaborative working environment within your organisation, to enable the conditions for service design.
If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact mark.harbottle@dwp.gov.uk.
Alongside your salary of £75,026, Department for Work and Pensions contributes £21,735 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes:
- Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours.
- Generous annual leave – at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (pro–rata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave.
- Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme.
- Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly).
- Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 year’s continuous service.
- Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes.
- An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Women’s Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more.
Hybrid Working
This role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work.
If a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for the role and for you, you will normally be required to spend a minimum of 60% of your contracted working hours from your DWP office.
If you have a disability, caring responsibilities, or other circumstances that may affect your ability to meet the minimum office attendance requirement, please discuss this with us using the contact details in this advert.
Salary Information
Pay for this role is from £75,026 to £80,267.
Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview.
Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer will maintain their current salary.
Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase in salary, whichever is greater.
Selection process details
Stage 1: Application
Your Application Will Consist Of Three Parts:
- A Personal Details application form.
- Employment history - this should contain your work experience and any skills, qualifications and accomplishments relevant to the jobs you have completed based on the essential criteria.
- Personal statement - up to 1000 words. This statement should be used to provide examples of how you meet the essential criteria listed in the Person specification.
Ensure that all examples provided in your statement are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. If you choose to use gen-AI to support your statement, you must follow the guidelines outlined in the
Artificial intelligence and recruitment guide.
The sift panel will use the information in your employment history and personal statement to assess your experience, skills and knowledge against the essential criteria.
You will be provided with one combined overall assessment score for both your CV and Personal Statement.
An initial sift will be conducted using the lead criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift.
For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital.
Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign.
Important Information
- You will be asked to complete your employment history. Any information that you would customarily share on a CV should therefore be entered onto the application form.
- Personal details that could be used to identify you including your name, contact details and address must be removed for your application to be considered.
- If your employment history/personal statement contains any personal details your application will be withdrawn.
- Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application; however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate, and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own), applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use. A candidate’s guide to artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment.
Stage 2: Interview
If you’re successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the
essential criteria.
You will be asked to do a 10-minute presentation on a specific topic. The use of visual aids such a PowerPoint is encouraged. There will be a further 5 minutes for questions. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.
Interviews will take place from early February 2026. Interview dates to be confirmed.
Questions in Advance
To help you prepare and settle into the interview you will be sent the experience based questions in advance of the interview, 7 days prior to your interview.
These questions should be treated as confidential and should not be shared. The interview panel may ask you other questions which will not be shared in advance, including follow-up questions, and those about your experience. Candidates should be asked further probing questions if their response is deemed to require further information to determine suitability for the role.
Candidates are strongly encouraged to secure their interview slot promptly to ensure fairness in preparation time with the questions provided in advance.
Other Information:
If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards.
All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location.
For these vacancies, we strongly recommend that applicants consult with an immigration specialist or qualified advisor to assess their eligibility for Visa Sponsorship before deciding to apply. Please note that while we consider sponsorship requests in accordance with current DWP guidance and Home Office policy, sponsorship cannot be guaranteed.
Reasonable Adjustment
At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce.
We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via
DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
Complete the “Reasonable Adjustments” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional.
For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page.
Find out more about Working for DWP
A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made.
Reserve list candidates will be posted in merit order by location.
The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.
Nationality requirements
This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups:
- UK nationals
- nationals of the Republic of Ireland
- nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
- nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
- individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
- Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)
Working for the Civil Service
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.
We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).
The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.
The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.
Diversity and Inclusion
The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).
This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.
The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).
Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.
Contact point for applicants
Job Contact :
- Name : Mark Harbottle
- Email : mark.harbottle@dwp.gov.uk
Recruitment team
- Email : DigitalRecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Further information
Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles. If you wish to make a complaint, please find further details here: https://careers.dwp.gov.uk/how-we-recruit/.
