Service Design Practitioner

Marianne and Lola sat at a table doing project work

Key facts

Salary: up to £43,302 per annum

Contract: Permanent/full time with flexible working arrangements available

Location: Anywhere in the UK

Benefits include

  • Interest-free season ticket loans, electric vehicle and cycle to work schemes
  • Up to 18 weeks of paid parental leave depending on your situation
  • 25 days holiday plus bank holidays
  • Pension with up to 5% matching contribution from dxw
  • Flexible working to support your wellbeing and personal commitments
  • Macbook and home office setup budget

    Who we are

    dxw works with the public and third sectors to create services and products that improve lives. 

    We’ve been around since 2008 and worked on lots of projects that have made a real difference – things like helping to reduce reoffending, improving awareness of Adult Social Care and supporting organisations to move away from legacy tech.

    dxw is employee-owned and staff have an important voice in the direction of the company. People – the people who work at dxw, our clients, and the people we create services for – are at the forefront of what we do. 

    Everything we work on aligns with our mission, values, and principles. Our principles encompass a fundamental desire for us to look after our and our clients’ information. We handle clients’ information and data with the utmost care and confidentiality and hold ISO27001 certification.

    We encourage people looking for flexible working arrangements to apply. We think it’s important to have diverse teams and aim to create an environment where everyone is supported to do their best and be themselves.

    About the role

    We are looking for someone to join us as a Service Design Practitioner. This role sits between Associate (A.K.A. Junior) and Senior levels. The role can be based anywhere in the UK, but you must be willing to travel to client sites or dxw offices (London or Leeds) when required.

    As a service design practitioner you will work in multidisciplinary teams, often blended from dxw, client and partner staff, including user researchers, content designers, business analysts, developers and others. You will help those teams work together to 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 be working in a mix of settings on services at different stages of their lifecycle in line with the Government Service Manual; from early discovery and strategy around new and potential services, to transformation and improvement of existing ones. Using our design team principles and practices as a guide, you can collaborate with other disciplines, delivery leads and client teams to deliver value. You may sometimes support clients to build their own service design capability and skills.

    You will help dxw strengthen our service design practice by supporting the hiring of others. You will help to improve the way we work, developing, challenging and documenting our design practices to ensure that service design at dxw is the best it can be. You’ll be encouraged to share your experiences with the team and the wider design community to develop your own skills and help others improve.

    You will be required to understand our policies and processes related to our ISO27001 certification, and implement these in your day to day work. You will complete annual training as part of this.

    About you

    We’re looking for someone who cares about designing public services that work well for the people who rely on them. Experience of design in the public sector is ideal but not mandatory. You may have other professional or parallel experiences adding breadth to your skillset. It’s more important that you share our passion for creating public services that improve peoples’ lives.

    You should be able to demonstrate that you:

    • have 2-3 years of experience working in Service Design, or a related role
    • believe in the value and impact that service design can bring
    • are comfortable working as part of a multidisciplinary team, and collaborating with others
    • work in a way that facilitates inclusion, equity and parity both in the teams you work with and the services you will help deliver
    • have a working knowledge of agile methodologies
    • have a good understanding and practical experience of human-centred service design methods
    • can use a wide range of methods to explore and identify challenges and opportunities across the whole service lifecycle, front and back stage
    • have experience creating design artefacts that support clients and teams’ understanding of the problem to solve. For example, service blueprints, user journeys, flow diagrams, and prototypes
    • have strong communication skills, with the ability to articulate design ideas, insights, and the value of service design
    • are interested in contributing to the broader design community at dxw, and in challenging and moving our practice on. You also may enjoy contributing to blog posts, articles and presentations on service design or related topics
    • are willing to give things a go and can recognise and reach out for help from others when you need it
    • have a curiosity for, and some experience of, working with people, technology, data and systems

    Join us!

    You can learn more about dxw, how we work and what matters to us on our website and by reading our playbook.

    Our public sector work means that appointments will be made subject to a background check and you must be located and eligible to work in the UK at the point of application. Unfortunately we are currently unable to offer visa sponsorship.