Job summary

At HMRC we are committed to creating a great place to work for all our colleagues; an inclusive and respectful environment that reflects the diversity of the society we serve. 

We want to maximise the potential of everyone who chooses to work for us and we offer a range of flexible working patterns and support to make a fulfilling career at HMRC accessible to you.

Diverse perspectives and experiences are critical to our success and we welcome applications from all people from all backgrounds with the experience and skills needed to perform this role.

See what it’s like to work at HMRC: find out more about us or ask our colleagues a question. Questions relating to an individual application must be emailed as detailed later in this advert.

This is a chance to work on content that affects the lives of millions of citizens, as a Lead Content Designer for GOV.UK within the Customer Engagement & IT Business Service directorate.

Our ideal candidate

Are you an experienced content design professional with senior industry experience? 

Are you a digital leader who can influence, lead and mentor others? 

If the answers to those questions are “yes”, read on for a unique opportunity to be directly involved in making the tax system easy for everyone as a key member of HMRC’s GOV.UK team. 

We are looking for an experienced content design leader to work closely with our content design teams to ensure that our user-centred design approaches are developed, promoted and delivered and we continue to make our GOV.UK team a great place for content designers to work.

Job description You will work closely with our teams of content designers, maintaining an overview of the work taking place, building design culture and expertise and playing a key role in embedding content design skills and standards.

As a Lead Content Designer you will be a key member of our GOV.UK leadership team. You will work collaboratively with senior stakeholders such as policy and process owners and programme directors, promoting the use of user-centred content to meet user needs to support and deliver strategic and organisational change. Person specification

As 1 of our 4 Lead Content Designers for GOV.UK you will need to:

• Influence and assure the quality of content design within your portfolio and across the team using tools such as peer review, crits and accessible design reviews
• Influence senior leaders in the department to build their understanding of and support for content design and user-centred design approaches
• Collaborate with the Head of Content Design to provide vision and leadership for the content design profession
• Contribute to effective recruitment and resource planning, in collaboration with the Head of Content Design and senior operational leaders
• Support content design profession community events/sessions in collaboration with the Head of Content Design
• Provide line management, career and skills mentoring and coaching to a small team of Senior Content Designers, using your specialist skills to demonstrate best practice
• Help ensure that content designers on our GOV.UK team have the right conditions and environment to thrive
• Be an active leader in the cross-government content design community, discussing and sharing suggestions, approaches and ideas

Essential skills and experience

You need to have:

• Extensive experience in content design leadership - including coaching and mentoring colleagues, the ability to empower and develop a diverse team and ensuring the right resources are allocated effectively
• Proven experience in establishing positive working relationships with and influencing key individuals to deliver positive outcomes for users
• Experience in introducing positive change to working practices
• Excellent planning and organisational skills and the ability to prioritise to meet deadlines and cope with fluctuations in workload
• A degree in a relevant subject or equivalent extensive experience

You will also need to have extensive experience in:

• Designing, prototyping and iterating accessible, usable content that is based on meeting user needs
• Helping teams understand the wider context of a content project or product
• Working in an agile, multi-disciplinary and collaborative environment

Desirable experience

It would be great if you also have:

• Experience in designing end-to-end services, across multiple products and channels
• Experience in developing and implementing content strategy
• Experience working with the Service Manual and/or GOV.UK standards and working practices
• Familiarity with the GOV.UK design system and prototyping kit

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Strategic Thinking
• User Focus
• Stakeholder Relationship Management

Follow link to full application form and apply before closing date of Thursday 23rd March. 

• Evidence- and Context-based Design