Senior Service Designer

About the job

• Benefits
• Things you need to know
• Apply and further information

Location

This role may be located in one of the following locations; Birmingham, Blackpool, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Sheffield or Glasgow.

Please find further information on the Corporate hub locations here.

Please note that for candidates requesting to work in Newcastle, the role will initially be based at Benton Park View. It will then move to 1 Pilgrim Place in Newcastle city centre by the end of 2027.

For candidates requesting to work in Sheffield King’s Court, please note these roles will initially be based at King’s Court and then move to 1 West Bar by early 2028.

For candidates requesting to work in Glasgow Northgate, please note these roles will initially be based at Glasgow Northgate and will then move to Glasgow Atlantic Quay by September 2027.

About the job

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 support over 22 million people each day, from helping them find work to supporting them through some of life’s most difficult moments.

We're looking for Senior Service Designers to join us and 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.

This is more than a design role; it’s a chance to enable others to design better services too. You’ll collaborate with policy, product, delivery, and operational teams to align goals, clarify problems, and ultimately create services that are inclusive, resilient, and responsive to change.

You’ll be part of a supportive and growing Service Design community that values openness, learning, and practical problem-solving.

We are recruiting multiple roles. If successful, you could be placed in one of the following areas:

Health and Disability focuses on providing simple, responsive services and making timely, accurate and understandable decisions that help people get the support they need.

Working Age Services - Benefit Administration. WAS Benefit Administration is responsible for the ongoing development and modernisation of all employment-related benefits, including Universal Credit. Their responsibility is for both agent and claimant service delivery and the future strategic direction of these benefit lines.

Debt Management is responsible for recovering debt owed to the Department that has arisen through benefit payments. Its focus is to deliver services that balance effective debt recovery with an understanding of, and responsiveness to, the differing circumstances of citizens, ensuring repayments are fair and sustainable.

Digital Payment Services underpins the UK’s largest payment operation, working with government and industry partners to modernise payment services through digitally-enabled design.

Digital Channels sits within the wider Customer Contact, Fraud, Error and Debt (CCFED) directorate, whose focus is on enterprise services. Digital Channels owns the strategy, design, delivery, optimisation and performance of customer and agent-facing digital channels, including DWP's GOV.UK content, self-serve customer account and GOV.UK App, telephony and postal routes.

Job description

As a Senior Service Designer, you will:

• Drive awareness of service performance and improvement opportunities to improve service outcomes and solve complex problems.
• Use user needs, business and policy goals, and use storytelling and visualisations to articulate whole services; end-to-end, front-to-back, and across business areas or departments.
• Share your knowledge of service design in practice to advocate for user-centred ways of working. Establish and maintain service design workflows, including guidance, tools and patterns, to support your teams' outcomes.
• Lead communication with stakeholders at varying levels of seniority and facilitate conversations, collaboration and consensus that support the team strategy, drive decision-making and achieve outcomes across teams and business areas.
• Be capable of leading small multi-disciplinary teams to establish service design methods, lead workshops and use design patterns to support strategy and decision-making across the team or business area.
• Support the DWP service design community by contributing to meet-ups to create connections and share work openly, actively supporting and mentoring team members, promoting the capability of service design in and beyond the department, and participating in recruitment activities.

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 substantial experience of designing end-to-end, front-to-back services which solve complex problems.
• Demonstrate the use of best-practice methodology and evidence-based design expertise to develop services that meet user and colleague needs as well as organisational objectives.
• Be comfortable communicating with a range of colleagues and influencing stakeholders at multiple levels of seniority on the value of service design, your approaches and design decisions.
• Create and maintain a positive working environment that enables collaboration within your teams, the wider organisation and the service design community.

If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact Oliver.Canham1@dwp.gov.uk

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £57,946, Department for Work and Pensions contributes

£16,786 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.

Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window).

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 £57,946 to £68,205.

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 substantive salary.

Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion will move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or receive a 10% increase applied to their current substantive salary, whichever is greater.

Any temporary allowances that you are currently in receipt of will not form part of the calculation to determine your pay. Any allowances that are in payment will cease when you move into your new role.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

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 (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

Stage 1: Application

Your application will consist of three parts:

1. A Personal Details application form.

2. 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.

3. 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.

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.

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 deliver a 10 minute presentation on a specific topic. Further details will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

Interviews will take place from Late October 2026. Interview dates to be confirmed.

Questions in Advance

To help you prepare and settle into the interview you will be sent the interview questions in advance of the interview, at least 5 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 and abilities. Candidates may be