Senior Interaction Designer

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) is seeking a senior interaction designer to contribute to its digital transformation. This role involves designing user-centred public services at scale within multidisciplinary teams, aligning with Government Design Principles. Key responsibilities include identifying and resolving complex public infrastructure issues, promoting best practices and standards in user centred design, and mentoring junior designers. The successful candidate will be proactive, take ownership of design activities (like facilitating critiques and documenting user journeys), and possess excellent leadership, collaboration, presentation, and communication skills to work effectively with various stakeholders.

Find out more on our Design in Government blog.

Working Style

This role will be carried out in-line with IPO Hybrid working arrangements where staff are currently expected to spend at least 20% of their time working onsite from one of our offices. This role is based in our Newport Office.

The requirement for attendance at an office location can vary by role so we would encourage candidates to discuss working arrangements with the recruiting manager to agree a reasonable balance between working from home and the office., * Design and Develop User-Centred Services: Work in agile, multidisciplinary teams to rapidly develop design concepts for complex transformation programs, collaborating with service managers and programme directors. This includes actively participating in user research, creating prototypes, and designing user interactions across various channels, devices, and technologies, all while being able to justify design decisions with evidence and data.

• Promote and Implement Design Excellence: Champion a consistent, high-quality user experience by promoting reusable design elements and best practices across the IPO and wider government communities. This involves contributing to user-centred design standards and guidance, utilising the GOV.UK Design System, and ensuring designs meet accessibility, legal, and security requirements, as well as the GOV.UK Service Standard.
• Lead and Mentor Design Professionals: Provide management support, coaching, mentoring, and training to other designers (including HEO Interaction Designers), focusing on their development, the quality of their work, and ensuring adherence to best practices., This post is being advertised to Internal, across Government and External candidates at the same time.

Incomplete and/or late submissions will not be accepted or considered. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

We do not routinely reimburse travel expenses for candidates, however if participating in the selection process would cause you undue financial hardship or if it restricts your ability to participate, please contact the recruitment team for more information.

In line with Government guidance, successfully appointed candidates will need to provide documents for our Right to Work checks. Information on this will be sent within the invite to interview text.

If you require a reasonable adjustment at any stage of the recruitment process, then please let the recruitment team know via; recruitment@ipo.gov.uk

Please be aware that only one application per candidate is permitted for each recruitment campaign. Multiple applications, including those made using different accounts, may result in your application being withdrawn or rejected at any stage of the process.

For more information on the IPO’s terms and conditions, please review the attached IPO Modernised Terms and Conditions document attached at the bottom of this advert. Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check .

See our vetting charter . People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks., * 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)
• 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

Do you have experience in Usability?, * Experience working effectively in an agile, multi-disciplinary team environment, delivering iterative design components as part of a project team.

• Experience in designing accessible solutions across various channels to meet customer needs. Proven ability to produce essential user-centred design deliverables, such as user flows, process flows, service blueprints, and site maps.
• Proficient in using prototyping tools like GOV.UK Prototype Kit, Figma, or Adobe XD to create and validate high-fidelity prototypes.
• Experience in conducting usability testing, either independently or collaboratively with user researchers.
• Demonstrated experience working with the GOV.UK Design System, Service Manual, and design principles, including the ability to recommend new patterns or update existing ones within the system.
• Experience in leading community of practice activities.
• Proven ability to mentor and coach designers across the UCD profession., Successful candidates must pass a disclosure and barring security check and if successful you must also hold, or be willing to obtain, a higher Security Clearance.

For meaningful checks to be carried out individuals will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, depending on the level of clearance, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. For this role the successful individual will need to have consistently lived in the UK for a minimum 5 years in order to meet the relevant security clearance.

£47,766 - £58,575 Maximum salary amount includes Recruitment Retention Allowance and Technical Allowances of up to £8,420.Final salary package will be dependent on skills and experience. A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97% GBP, Alongside your salary of £47,766, Intellectual Property Office contributes £13,837 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

• Unlimited Pluralsight video learning access
• Access to Microsoft’s ESI training suite
• Hybrid working with no core hours
• Substantial support for career progression
• 25 days annual leave moving to 30 days in annual increments
• You will also get 8 days public leave and 1 day privilege leave