Policy Lab, Policy Designer

**Details**:
**Reference number**:

- 406780

**Salary**:

- £41,458
- £45,492 (London)
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

**Job grade**:

- Senior Executive Officer

**Contract type**:

- Permanent

**Business area**:

- DFE - Strategy Group - Policy Lab

**Type of role**:

- Policy

**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Job share, Part-time

**Number of jobs available**:

- 1

**Contents**:

- Location
- About the job
- Benefits
- Things you need to know

**Location**:

- London - SW1P 3BT, Bristol - BS2 0EL, Manchester - M1 2WD, Leeds - LS1 4AP

Please note - Leeds currently have site controls in place. Therefore, this location option is only available to existing DfE employees already assigned to this office location

**About the job**:
**Job summary**:
Policy Lab is based in the Department for Education (DfE) but works across the whole of government. At DfE we are proud of the commitment we make to diversity and inclusion and of the progress we have made. We have active and vibrant staff networks, special leave policies and workplace adjustments put in place for those who need them. We are continuing to build a diverse DfE, in an inclusive environment which nurtures and realises potential in all, at all levels.

Please note that we may recruit more than one individual. Applicants who are successful at the interview but not appointed to the role will be placed on a reserve list. They may be considered for future opportunities at Senior Executive Officer or Higher Executive Officer grades.

**Job description**:
Policy Lab has a decade of experience working openly and collaboratively to address some of the UK’s toughest policy challenges. Our team of around 30 people comprises experts in policy, lived experience research, experimentation, art, systems thinking, futures, technology and design (including co-design, graphic design and strategic design). Recent projects include work in multiple disadvantage, the government’s new Opportunity Mission and protecting environmental sites. We operate on a cost recovery basis and are accountable to our varied commissioners.

We are looking for an ambitious Policy Designer (SEO) to join our dynamic project teams and further Policy Lab's policy design practice. The post holder will work closely with colleagues across the Policy Lab on collaborative innovation projects, in particular with our Design Practice Lead (G7) and our co-Heads of Creative Innovation Practice (G6).

By policy design we mean individuals with: an excellent understanding of how to gather and act upon user-insights from people centred research; a strong grasp of policy systems and how best to intervene in them with new evidence and solutions; a solid understanding of the design process and what it takes to identify and prototype ideas for policy; good facilitation skills for varied groups; an ability to represent ideas and systems visually - or to work with others who can; and, the ability to identify, understand and support the goals of varied policy commissioners across-government. This may mean that you have a background in visual or other design disciplines, but you may have also come to hone your design skills through your policy experience or another design-adjacent field.

As an SEO Policy Designer, you will be:

- Contributing to larger Policy Lab projects as part of a mixed teams, offering your specialist input in policy design. This might include leading and delivering parts of projects (e.g. discovery phase), providing policy analysis and report writing or leading the design of project-specific artefacts.
- On occasion, leading smaller innovation projects from within the Policy Lab and managing small multidisciplinary project teams to do so. This might include a range of activities from the design and delivery of project methodologies to data management, team oversight and managing relationships with commissioners from policy teams across government to help them achieve their policy goals.
- Ensuring that Policy Lab achieves the highest level of policy impact from its projects by drawing on our internal evaluation model and working with others in your project teams to do so.
- Leading on and offering input to project proposals. You will also build strong outward relationships with commissioners, potential commissioners and others in the wider policy and innovation communities within government and beyond.
- Designing and delivering shorter projects, such as workshops, sprints and training in collaboration with other Policy Lab colleagues. As part of our business model, the Lab runs shorter interventions and alongside your project work you will be part of small teams designing and delivering these initiatives.
- Using your policy design skills to bring a sense of new tools, techniques and approaches (‘next practice’) to Policy Lab, by pursuing your specialism in policy design and working closely with other experts in the Policy Lab team t