DWP Digital
Lead Service Designer

How your CV stacks up
Upload your CV to see how well it fits this job role
?%
Job Title: Lead Service Designer
Pay: up to £75,026 - £80,267 plus 28.97% employer pension contributions, hybrid working, flexible hours, and great work-life balance.
About Us:
DWP. Digital with Purpose.
DWP Digital and Transformation Group offers rewarding careers for people who want to use their skills to make a meaningful difference to society. As part of the UK's largest government department, we support millions of people every day through essential products, services, and payments.
About the Role:
We are looking for a confident, inquisitive, and collaborative Lead Service Designer to help shape the future of these services.
- Key Responsibilities:
- Work across Working Age Services and the wider department to identify and understand complex problems.
- Collaborate with multidisciplinary teams and test and refine solutions that improve outcomes for citizens.
- Bring teams and stakeholders together using strong facilitation skills.
- Create shared understanding and drive innovation through user-centred design and emerging technologies.
- Play an important leadership role, mentoring others, and helping to develop service design capability across the organisation.
Skills, Knowledge, and Experience Required:
- Significant experience designing and delivering end-to-end services that address complex user, business, and organisational challenges.
- Strong service design expertise, with the ability to use evidence and insight to shape services that achieve user and organisational outcomes.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with experience influencing senior leaders and championing user-centred design.
- Experience establishing and maintaining collaborative ways of working that enable multidisciplinary teams to deliver effective service design outcomes.
- Experience working with policy and strategy teams is highly desirable.
Reasons to use Rodeo
I’m in my final year doing Economics and I don’t know whether to apply for grad schemes now or do a masters first. What do you think?
Honest answer — it depends on where you want to end up. A lot of top grad schemes (Big 4, civil service, banking) don’t need a masters. Let’s look at the ones you’d be competitive for now, and we can decide if a masters actually adds anything.
Also worth knowing: most autumn 2026 applications are open now. Timing matters more than you think.
Start with a chat, not a search bar
Grad scheme, placement, apprenticeship? Not sure what you want yet — that's fine. Your agent talks it through with you and turns "I have no idea" into a shortlist.
Graduate Consultant — 2026 Scheme
Why you're a good match
StrongYour economics background and your summer at a regional bank line up with what PwC looks for on the consulting scheme. Applications close in four weeks.
See breakdownIt searches the market for you
Every day your agent scans the market matching roles against what actually matters to you, not just keywords on a CV.
Why you're a good match
You’ve got the grades and the economics background, and your bank internship is exactly the experience this scheme looks for. Apply soon — deadlines close within the month.
Experience fit
Your summer at the bank plus your econometrics coursework map directly to the day-one responsibilities on this scheme — client modelling, market briefings, and deal support.
Only hits
No noise. No "maybe this fits." Just roles with a clear explanation of why they're right — and where to focus when applying.
Your Role:
As a Lead Service Designer, you will help shape the future of DWP's Working Age Services by bringing together user needs, policy, and business priorities to design services that deliver better outcomes.
- Key Tasks:
- Work closely with Product Managers, policy colleagues, and multidisciplinary teams.
- Use evidence, insight, and research to shape services, influence strategic decisions, and improve end-to-end user experiences.
Location: You'll join us in one of our brilliant digital hubs in Birmingham, Leeds, or Manchester, whatever is most convenient for you.
Hybrid Working: We work a hybrid model - you'll spend some time working at home and sometime collaborating face-to-face in a hub.
Benefits:
- Competitive Pay: from £75,026 - £80,267
- Pension: A brilliant civil service pension with employer contributions worth 28.97%, worth up to £23,253 per year.
- Holidays: A generous leave package starting at 26 days rising to 31 days over time. You can also take up to 3 extra days off a month on flexitime. You'll also get all the usual public holidays.
- Broad Benefits Package:
- Flexible working including flexible hours and flex-friendly policies
- Time off volunteering and charitable giving
- Bring your authentic self to work with 'I Can Be Me in DWP'
- Discounts and savings on shopping, fun days out, and more
- Interest-free loans to buy a bike or a season ticket
- Sports and social activities
- Professional development, coaching, mentoring, and career progression opportunities.


Get help with your application
Your very own career expert that helps elevate your application to the next level.
Our Award-Winning Environment and Culture:
- DWP have been recognised as 2024 Diversity Employer of the Year at the Computing Women in Tech Excellence awards.
- Diverse and Inclusive Leadership at Digital Leaders Awards 2024.
- Commended as Best Place to Work in Digital category in the Computing Digital Technology Leaders awards 2025.
- Recognised as one of the Best Public Sector Employers at 2025 Women In Tech Employer Awards.
Application Process:
We know your time is valuable, so our application and selection process is just two stages:
- Apply: complete your application on Civil Service Jobs. There'll be full instructions when you click through.
- Interview: a single stage interview online.
Click Apply for more information and to start your application.
“It took my CV and asked me questions relevant to understanding what kind of jobs to suggest for me. Suggestions were almost perfect. Jobs were exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
Jessica, London
Skills