Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Principal Service Designer
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Bristol, London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Reading, Warrington, York
Job Summary
Defra is the UK government department responsible for safeguarding our natural environment, supporting our world-leading food and farming industry, and sustaining a thriving rural economy. Our broad remit means we play a major role in people's day-to-day life, from the food we eat, and the air we breathe, to the water we drink.
Digital, Data, Technology and Security (DDTS) is the trusted team for digital across the entire Defra Group.
We have around 1000 colleagues across DDTS and our ambition is to make it easier and faster than ever for people to interact with Defra. If you are ready to drive innovation and push boundaries, we want to hear from you. Join us and together we will create a great place for living, and a green and healthy future for all.
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Job Description
These Grade 6 Principal Service Designer roles operate at a strategic level within Digital Delivery, bridging policy design and digital delivery to ensure services are coherent, user-centred and deliverable.
The roles provide design leadership across multiple complex services, setting direction for service design activity and assuring quality across teams. By embedding systems thinking and user-centred design early in the policy lifecycle, these roles help prevent fragmented delivery, reduce the risk of costly rework, and ensure digital services are designed as an integral part of policy rather than as an afterthought.
Principal Service Designers work closely with programme directors, service managers and policy teams, as well as delivery partners, to shape end-to-end service outcomes.
The roles also involve leading and coordinating other service designers, aligning their work with the wider service landscape and helping to create a consistent experience across Defra services. Principal Service Designers will need to work as a close community, developing a shared understanding of services from the user’s point of view and looking beyond Defra’s organisational structures to identify how services connect in practice.
Person specification
Responsibilities
- Leads discussions at senior level and negotiates change to support the delivery of better end to end services
- Prioritises understanding needs and behaviours of users to underpin the services the organisation designs
- Sets standards for service design quality, output and impact
- Ensures services meet the Government Service Standard
- Ensures teams design services accessible to a full range of users, including those with accessibility needs.
Skills And Experience
The successful candidate will be a senior service design practitioner with extensive experience of delivering and leading user-centred design in complex government environments. They will be comfortable operating at a strategic level, influencing senior stakeholders and navigating ambiguity, while maintaining a strong focus on user needs and service outcomes.
They Will Bring The Following Essential Qualities And Experience
- Strategic service design expertise, with a proven track record of leading service design across large, complex programmes and influencing policy and programme-level decision-making.
- Strong government UCD experience, including delivery to GDS standards and applying user-centred design methods across discovery, alpha, beta and live.
- Excellent stakeholder management skills, with experience working across policy teams, arm’s-length bodies, suppliers and senior leaders from other professions.
- Systems thinking capability, able to see and design for whole service ecosystems rather than isolated services or transactions.
- Leadership and people development experience, including directing, mentoring and coordinating service designers to ensure consistent, high-quality outcomes.
- Resilience and pragmatism, able to adapt to a changing policy landscape while maintaining focus on long-term service quality and user outcomes.
- Confidence to challenge constructively, advocating for users and user-centred approaches in environments where operational or business pressures may dominate.
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Selection process
The Civil Service marks each element of the selection process on a merit basis. You can visit the gov.uk website for further information on the Civil Service rating scale.
Ensure you have tailored your CV and Personal Statement to the 'skills and experience' section of the job advert by providing examples on how you are suitable for the role using the STAR method.
Please ensure you demonstrate clearly, within your personal statement, how you meet these requirements, as the information you provide will form a key part when the panel is scoring your application.
For further information on STAR, you can check out our Hints and Tips document.
Application process
As Part Of The Application Process, You Will Be Assessed On Your Experience. This Will Be Evaluated By Looking At Your CV And Personal Statement, So Please Provide The Following And Ensure Your Experience Is Clearly Demonstrated
- A CV
- A 750 word Personal Statement: Referring to the 'skills and experience' sections of the job advert, please demonstrate how you are suitable for the role by providing relevant examples.
Sift
Sift will begin shortly after the advert closes.
Should there be a large number of applications, an initial sift will be conducted using your personal statement. Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment or interview.
Interview
If successful at sift, you will be invited to an interview where you will be assessed on the Behaviours and technical skills listed below.
Interview dates are to be confirmed. Please note that these may be subject to change.
Interviews will be held virtually on Microsoft Teams.
As part of the recruitment process you will be required to do a presentation which will be used to assess the technical elements indicated on the advert. Full details of the presentation will be provided with your invitation to interview if successful at sift.
For further information on the technical elements being assessed please refer to the Framework.
For further information on Success Profiles, you can visit the links below and watch our videos on DefraJobs.
Behaviours
- Leadership
- Seeing the Big Picture
- Communicating and Influencing
- Changing and Improving
Technical skills
- Designing Strategically - Level: practitioner
- Leading Design - Level: practitioner
- Evidence-based Design - Level: expert
Salary
Alongside your salary of £67,730, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs contributes £19,621 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).
Learning and development tailored to your role An environment with flexible working options A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity A Civil Service pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%
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Location
As part of the pre-employment process for this post, successful candidate(s) will be able to agree a contractual workplace from those locations listed in this advert. The agreed contractual workplace is then the substantive and permanent place of work for the successful candidate(s).
Where the location is ‘National’ the successful appointee should discuss and agree an appropriate contractual location in line with both Defra’s location policy and site capacity, prior to proceeding with pre-employment processes.
The agreed amount of time spent at a workplace for this post will reflect the requirement for Civil Servants to spend at least 60% of their working time in an organisation workplace with the option to work the remaining time flexibly from home. Working time spent at a workplace may include time spent at other organisational locations including field-based operational locations, together with supplier, customer or partner locations. This is a non-contractual agreement which is consistent with common Civil Service expectations.
Travel costs to non-contractual workplaces will be subject to departmental travel and subsistence policies. Travel costs to contractual workplaces are the responsibility of the employee.
The successful candidate is required to carry out all their duties from a UK location, and cannot do so from an overseas location at any time.
Defra includes the core department, APHA, RPA, Cefas and VMD.
Further Information
Reserve list
A reserve list may be held for a period of 12 months from which further appointments can be made.
Near miss
Candidates who are judged to be a near miss at interview may be considered for other positions in Defra which may be at a lower grade, but have a potential skills match.
Merit Lists
Where more than one location is advertised, candidates will be posted in merit order by location. You will be asked to state your location preference on your application.
Reasonable adjustment
If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.
If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:
Contact Government Recruitment Service via defrarecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.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
If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.
In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.
However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.
Internal Fraud Database Check
Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD).
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