Service Designer - REQ005524

Job title: Service Designer

Hours: 37

Contract: Fixed‑term 2 years (with the option to extend if required)

Salary: PO4 £46,142 - £49,282

Location: Leeds / hybrid working

Start: From April 2026

Join Leeds City Council’s Customer Transformation Programme

Leeds City Council is embarking on a 3.5‑year Customer Transformation Programme (CTP) to modernise customer contact, improve experience for residents and colleagues, and deliver significant, recurring savings as an Invest to Save initiative. We are building a skilled internal delivery team and are recruiting three posts that are critical to programme success.

Why join

These roles provide specialist capability to deliver complex transformation at pace - reducing avoidable demand, streamlining processes, and supporting digital self‑service -while strengthening internal capacity and reducing reliance on external consultants. You’ll help ensure benefits are realised and sustained beyond the life of the programme.

The opportunities

Service Designer (PO4)
Lead the design of customer and colleague experiences. Map and improve journeys, prototype and test new service patterns, and champion inclusive, user‑centred design. Your work will embed new ways of working, support adoption, and accelerate digital change across the organisation.

What you’ll bring

Proven experience in your discipline (business analysis, service design, or contract/performance management) within transformation programmes.
Strong stakeholder engagement and the ability to translate strategy into deliverable, measurable change.
A commitment to public service, inclusion, and continuous improvement.

What we offer

The chance to make a tangible difference for Leeds City Council customers and colleagues by modernising customer contact and delivering savings that support the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan.
A collaborative environment working alongside a strategic delivery partner and skilled internal teams, with opportunities for knowledge transfer and professional development.

Ready to help shape services that work better for everyone in Leeds? Apply now and be part of a programme that combines insight, design and disciplined delivery to create lasting impact.

We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people.

This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.

If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visa route before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least £41,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Ensure you are eligible before applying.

Job Purpose Play a key role in delivering Leeds City Council’s Customer Transformation Programme, ensuring services are designed around the needs of residents and staff, while supporting the city’s ambition to be Healthy, Growing, Thriving, and Resilient.

Responsibilities

Lead the design of joined-up, inclusive, and cost-effective services that meet user needs and organisational goals. Helping the organisation and its services to design digital first services from the ‘outside in’, rather than the ‘inside out’.
Lead End to End Service Design across digital and offline channels where required. This role will ensure that user needs are met whilst delivering policy intent. The Service Designer will work with the chosen tools and technology platforms that Leeds City Council adopts to ensure services are designed effectively whilst meeting wider organisational strategic goals.
Design and improve end-to-end services that reduce inequality, deliver inclusive economic growth, build stronger communities, and contribute to a more sustainable future. By applying service design practices, they will help ensure digital and face-to-face services are accessible, inclusive, and effective for all citizens.
Contribute recommendations on budget management and financial planning that are informed from service redesign proposals, ensure effective monitoring is built into future designs whilst assuring that all activities conducted under this role are done so with approved procedures whilst adhering to Council Financial Regulations.
Where necessary, supervise and carry out appraisals of employees in line with associated policies and procedures, maintaining employee records using appropriate documentation and associated guidance as required.
Document “as-is” and design “to-be” journeys to identify opportunities for improvement..
Conduct own User Research or work with User Researchers to understand needs, pain points, and behaviors.
Create prototypes and service blueprints to test and refine service improvements.
Conduct discovery activities to document current (“as-is”) service journeys, identifying pain points and opportunities for improvement. Synthesize findings to design future (“to-be”) journeys and service blueprints that align with user needs and organisational goals, ensuring a clear roadmap from insight to implementation.
Develop and iterate prototypes based on synthesized research, engaging stakeholders in co-design and testing to validate solutions. Refine service blueprints through feedback loops, supporting the transition from concept to implementation to deliver measurable improvements in service quality and user experience.
Work with colleagues across Digital, Customer Services, Policy, Housing, Health, and Communities to co-design solutions.
Ensure services meet GDS standards and accessibility requirements, and are designed with an understanding of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).
Capture insights from user research and feedback to iterate services and support ongoing improvement.
Work closely with multidisciplinary teams including developers, researchers, and policy leads.
Facilitate workshops and stakeholder interviews.
Co-design services with internal teams and external users.
Provide training and guidance to end users and internal teams, creating a council wide community of practice that is engaged and influential.
Promote and lead design thinking and user-centred practices across the organisation.
Create and maintain technical and design documentation.
Place citizens and communities at the heart of service design.
Promote inclusivity, equity, and fairness in design and delivery.
The duties outlined are not meant as an exhaustive list and will also comprise any other duties within the spirit of the post commensurate with the job evaluation outcome for this post

QualificationsDegree level or equivalent knowledge and experience gained in relevant service area or role.

Essential requirements Candidates will only be shortlisted if they can demonstrate that they meet all the following essential requirements.

Able to work effectively as part of a team and to demonstrate organisational and time management skills prioritising own and team’s work to meet conflicting deadlines
Able to develop constructive working relationships and work in partnership with others
Excellent facilitation skills with diverse stakeholder groups.
Able to gather a wide range of information and accurately enter and retrieve data and information from digital and manual systems preparing and presenting reports and data to a wide range of audiences
Able to communicate appropriately and effectively with a wide range of people influencing decision-makers and building trust across organisational silos, including internal and external partners, customers and members of the public, through a variety of different methods
Ability to analyse complex processes and communicate them simply.
Able to use initiative to develop solutions to issues and problems to ensure effective delivery of the service.
Knowledge of relevant financial regulations to carry out financial transactions
Knowledge and understanding of diversity issues within local communities.
Knowledge of relevant legislation, guidance, policies with ability to interpret and apply them consistently.
Understand responsibilities in terms of Health, Safety, Wellbeing, security, confidentiality and data protection
Understand accessibility standards and EDI principles in service design.
Strong understanding of user-centered design, agile delivery, and continuous improvement.
Experience of leading service design in an organisation comparable to Leeds City Council.
Experience applying service design methods (journey mapping, prototyping, co-design, service blueprints).
Experience of ensuring compliance with defined service standards like WCAG 2.2, and Public Sector Accessibility Regulations.
Experience of working across multiple services in a complex system in a service design capacity.
Experience of creating service maps, blueprints, and prototypes as part of service design.
Workshop outputs, co-design artefacts, and stakeholder engagement materials.

Essential Behavioural & other Characteristics

Understand and embrace Leeds City Council Values and Behaviours and codes of conduct
Committed to continuous improvement in all areas and work towards delivering the Leeds Ambitions of health and wellbeing, inclusive growth, thriving strong communities and a resilient sustainable city
Able to understand and observe Leeds City Council policies and procedures.
Carry out duties having regard to an employee’s responsibility under Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Participate in appraisal, training and development activities to ensure up, to date knowledge and skills.
Be aware of and support difference and ensure equality for all working in an anti-discriminatory manner, upholding equality & diversity of Leeds City Council.
Recognise and appropriately challenge any incidents of racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and any form of abuse, reporting any concerns to the appropriate person
Flexible and adaptable to change to assist other services as required commensurate to grade.
The Council has adopted a flexibility protocol and the role will be expected to work within these parameters.

Desirable Requirements:

Familiarity with Customer Transformation Programmes and GDS Service Standard.
Knowledge of design tools (e.g., Miro, Figma).
Aware of behavioral insights and systems thinking in service change.
Experience in local government or public sector transformation
Experience of creating evidence packs for service assessments (aligned to GDS standards).
Experience of recommending and implementing service improvements that reduce inequality within local government services.

Deliverables / Outputs

Service maps, blueprints, and prototypes for priority areas of the Customer Transformation Programme (e.g., Customer Contact, Council Tax, Housing, Environmental Services).
Evidence packs for service assessments (aligned to GDS standards).
Recommendations for service improvements that reduce inequality and support Leeds’ Ambitions.
Workshop outputs, co-design artefacts, and stakeholder engagement materials.

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