Lead Designer

Position type: Permanent

Location: London, Hybrid

Starting: Immediately

We are ...

We’re an independent digital transformation consultancy with clients across public and

private sectors. We help our clients solve complex technical problems and provide

human-centred solutions that lead to positive outcomes. We do this with multidisciplinary

teams of strategists, architects, developers, designers and analysts working closely

alongside client stakeholders and end users.

We operate as a flat organisation, and believe in trusting and supporting our team to operate

independently, making the most of their expertise. We believe in giving everyone an

opportunity to continually learn and grow in the direction they choose, and we actively help

people to shape the career they want. We take work-life balance seriously, enabling people

to work flexibly where possible and we strive to create a fun and relaxed working

environment allowing our team to thrive.

We believe diversity makes us a stronger company and we seek to employ people with

different ideas, styles and skill sets, each able to contribute in unique ways. This diversity

engenders a richer, more creative environment – one in which our people, clients and

end-users can all benefit.

The role

We’re looking for a Lead Designer to join our multidisciplinary team designing and delivering

innovative digital products and services for our Government and Private Sector clients.

● You will work in multidisciplinary teams, often blended from Solirius, client and

partner staff. You will help those teams create products and services that both meet

the needs of the different people who will use and be affected by them, and help our

clients achieve their intended outcomes.

● You will need to be a strong design generalist (content, interaction, UX and service

design) to lead and have experience using a wide range of design methods in line

with the Government Service Standard and Solirius’ practices, and support other

designers to do the same. You will guide teams through external and internal service

assessments.

● As a Lead Designer, alongside working on more complex projects, you will be a line

manager. You’ll support the Head of Design with building and managing Solirius’

design community and ensuring a consistent approach to produce the highest quality

work.

● You will help us strengthen our design practice through hiring, coaching and

mentoring others. You will help to improve the way we work, developing and

documenting our practices to ensure the work we do has integrity and provides

value.

● You will regularly share your experiences with the team and the wider design

community to develop your own skills and help others improve across Solirius.

● You will lead and support activities to develop new client relationships and accounts

for both the Design practice and wider Solirius team.

Skills and experience required:

User-centred design

● You understand user-centred design activities at all levels, from the ‘big picture’

through to detailed interaction, visual, content and information architecture design.

● You’re experienced in planning and leading design workshops at all stages of a

project, from gathering initial user insights through to testing the usability of a product

or service.

● You’re experienced in user research, utilising different research methods as

appropriate, synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research data and findings, and

are able to communicate insights in an engaging and concise way to engage

stakeholders in data-informed decisions.

● You’re able to understand, facilitate and communicate a vision of change from both

business and user perspectives.

● You’re experienced in creating hypotheses and mapping service experiences from

insights, and defining changes to meet user and business needs.

● You’re experienced at rapid prototyping to test, iterate and validate solution designs.

● You’re experienced at producing concise artefacts (e.g. personas, journey maps,

service blueprints, user stories) to help communicate user and business needs.

● You’re experienced at working with agile development teams and stakeholders to

co-design products and services to meet user needs.

● You’re able to support and coach teams and stakeholders in the use of user-centred

design and agile methodologies.

● You advocate for and ensure high standards of usability, accessibility and inclusivity

for products and services.

● You have a detailed understanding and experience of working to the Government

Service Standard. (essential)

Consulting, communications and productivity

● You’re able to understand client needs and both participate and lead in bid writing

and client presentation activities to generate new business. Prior experience working

within a consultancy or agency setting is desirable.

● You have experience with client account management and are able to work with

client stakeholders to ideate and define new projects, develop statements of work

and are confident in leading large-scale projects to successful completion.

● You have excellent verbal/written, listening and facilitation skills and are confident in

communicating with stakeholders at all levels.

● You have the technical literacy to understand (at a high-level) technical processes,

concepts and constraints.

● You naturally recognise and work within project constraints, supporting colleagues to

ensure delivery of value to the client and their users.

● You’re instrumental in supporting the development of Solirius’ internal culture, tools,

processes and growth opportunities.

The ideal candidate will share our values and be aligned with our ways of working and as

your career progresses, you can expect to work across all areas of the development

lifecycle, from strategy to implementation, and to take on assignments in different sectors.

This will provide you with a broad base of experience from which to continue building an

outstanding career.

Candidates should be open to working in different locations for different clients. Although

most of our work is remote, candidates should be happy to meet regularly in our London

office and travel as client needs dictate.

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