HM Revenue & Customs
Lead Business Designer
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Bristol, Canary Wharf, Leeds, Manchester
Job Summary
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This role is part of HMRC Valuation Office, formerly known as the Valuation Office Agency. We have recently integrated into HMRC.
HMRC Valuation Office are the public sector’s property valuation experts and advisers with a vision to be a world-leading provider of public sector valuations. Our work is vital to the collection of over £60 billion of revenue which goes back into communities, touching every citizen and every business across England and Wales.
Job Description
Role Overview
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the expanding Business Design team in HMRC Valuation Office. As Lead Business Designer, you will own the end-to-end view of one of our two main services: Council Tax or Non-Domestic Rates. You will use evidence and data to identify where service improvements will have the greatest impact, lead cross-functional design activity, provide recommendations and shape outcomes that influence organisational decisions.
This is a new role for the organisation, enabling the individual to shape this opportunity for themselves. This is amidst an exciting backdrop of the organisation adopting new technologies and designing for new policies.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead on the development and maintenance of key design artefacts for one of the agencies main services, including service blueprint and business capabilities, to provide a clear view of the current service and its future state.
- Promote the value and impact of business design across the VO, building knowledge, capability and maturity of business design and architecture.
- Align with strategy and policy to understand and drive the implementation of the organisation’s vision. Use data analysis and evidence to identify improvement opportunities and prioritise work across the end-to-end service.
- Facilitate workshops and lead cross-functional design activity with colleagues from user research policy, technology, AI, data and operations to design user-centred solutions.
- Work across organisational boundaries to ensure best possible service design and balance policy intent, customer needs, available resources and value for money.
- Provide strategic insight to senior leaders, ensuring design decisions support measurable improvements for users and the organisation.
- Lead the impact assessment of proposed changes across users, process, data, technology and people, and use this to develop evidence-based transformation solutions.
Person specification
We are looking for a confident and credible design leader with strong experience of user-centred service design and business architecture. You will be able to lead and promote the value of strategic business design and influence senior stakeholders, work across professional boundaries and turn complex issues into clear, practical and evidence-based design outputs.
You will operate with a high degree of autonomy, setting direction for business design activity within their service area. In this leadership role, you will need to be flexible, resilient and respond effectively to changing priorities, helping to deliver results whilst navigating and understanding often complex and ambiguous business problems where there is not always a clear precedent.
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Essential Requirements
- Demonstrable experience of service design, leading cross-functional teams to develop service blueprints, customer journeys and process maps.
- Demonstrable experience of business architecture or business design across transformation or strategy work, including experience of developing and utilising business capabilities.
- Strong Leadership skills with experience of leading design activity across diverse stakeholders and lead cross-functional teams to deliver measurable outcomes.
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to influence and negotiate at all levels and present complex ideas clearly, both verbally and visually, to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong ability to use evidence and data to shape priorities, assess impacts, support strategic decision-making and deliver successful outcomes.
- Ability to take an enterprise-wide view using standard frameworks, linking strategy, capabilities, technology and governance to coherent design outcomes.
- Resilience, adaptability and sound judgement in ambiguous environments, with the ability to work at pace and respond to changing priorities.
Behaviours
We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:
- Leadership
- Managing a Quality Service
- Communicating and Influencing
- Seeing the Big Picture
Technical skills
We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:
- You will be required to conduct a 10-minute presentation followed by a 5-minute Q&A. Information on the presentation topic will be provided to you if you are shortlisted for interview.
Alongside your salary of £59,342, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £17,191 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).
HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs.
We offer a generous leave allowance that starts at 25 days, increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days and a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.
Pension
- We make contributions to our colleagues’ Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary. Family friendly policies. Personal support. Coaching and development.
To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it’s really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service
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
This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.
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How To Apply
If you can meet our person requirements above, we are keen to hear from you.
To apply for this post, you must complete an online application with the following:
- A CV setting out your Job History and Previous skills and experiences.
- A Personal Statement (maximum 750 words), please outline your suitability for the role. Please pay particular attention to the ‘Essential Requirements’ outlined in the advert when providing your answer.
Sift - 07/08/2026
Please note these dates are provisional and may be subject to change.
We will assess you on your CV and Personal Statement.
Should a large number of applications be received, an initial sift will be made on Personal Statement.
Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift or progressed straight to interview.
Interviews - W/C 24/08/2026
Please note these dates are provisional and may be subject to change. These will be confirmed should you be invited to interview.
Interviews are currently taking place using Microsoft Teams Video. We will provide more detail if you are shortlisted for interview.
We will assess you on the Behaviours listed in the job description, Strengths and a Technical Presentation
At the interview, the panel can then probe further and ask applicants to provide further specific examples that show how they best demonstrate their skills.
Technical Presentation
You will be required to conduct a 10-minute presentation followed by a 5-minute Q&A. Information on the presentation topic will be provided to you if you are shortlisted for interview.
Application Hints and Tips
For more information on Success Profiles, tips on how to write a successful application and find out more about what’s involved in the application process please visit About the application process, Civil Service Careers (civil-service-careers.gov.uk).
Further Information
Hybrid working at HMRC
HMRC is an office-based organisation, and colleagues are expected to spend 60% of their working time in the office. Our offices provide opportunity for interaction, collaboration which aids learning and development and a sense of community. Where the role allows it, and where the home environment is suitable, colleagues can work from home for up to 2 days a week, averaged over a calendar month (or a proportionate amount of time for colleagues who work less than full time).
Reasonable Adjustments
We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
- Contact the UBS Recruitment Team via resourcingteamvo@hmrc.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs.
- Complete the “Assistance required” 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.
Criminal Record Check
Applications received from candidates with a criminal record are considered fairly in accordance with the DBS Code of Practice and the Recruitment of ex-offenders Policy.
Locations
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