Policy Lab

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

- 427141

**Salary**:

- £60,300 - £70,730
- National: £60,300 - £66,330 London: £64,300 - £70,730
- A Civil Service Pension with an employer contribution of 28.97%

GBP

**Job grade**:

- Grade 7

**Contract type**:

- Permanent

**Business area**:

- HO - Digital Data and Technology

**Type of role**:

- Digital
Information Technology

**Working pattern**:

- Flexible working, Full-time, Part-time, Compressed hours

**Number of jobs available**:

- 1

**Contents**:

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

**Location**:

- Croydon - CR0 2WF
Manchester - M5 3LZ
Sheffield - S3 8NU

**About the job**:
**Job summary**:
We are looking for a senior content designer who is passionate about designing accessible services for everyone to use to join the Home Office’s Policy and Innovation Lab (‘CoLab’).

The Home Office keeps our UK citizens safe and our country secure. We play a fundamental role in the security and economic prosperity of the UK.

The Migration and Borders Group is responsible for policy, legislation and reform of the immigration system. The group’s work covers asylum, border security, visas and immigration and passports.

The Home Office Policy and Innovation Lab (CoLab) is a creative team of designers and researchers, that work closely with policy and operations teams from across the Home Office to bring user-centred and explorative approaches to policy making.

CoLab works in policy spaces that require a deeper understanding of service users, like how we can improve the experiences of asylum seekers in the UK or how we can improve users’ experiences of the passport system.

We’re looking for a Senior Content Designer to help us deliver impactful content in the Migration and Borders area. Projects may include:

- Creating content plans and communications to help people in asylum accommodation understand the asylum process, their rights, and obligations.
- Developing content to raise awareness of alternative accommodation options (e.g., living with friends, family, or hosts) for people seeking asylum.
- Improving tools and systems used by internal staff such as caseworkers, Border Force, and Immigration Enforcement officers.

We're looking for someone who can not only create clear, user-focused content but also think strategically about how content is delivered across a user journey. As an experienced content designer, you’ll know how to:

- Define what content is needed, by whom, in what format, and when, to maximise impact
- Develop both low
- and high-fidelity prototypes, in different formats
- Simplify complex language and processes
- Advocate for user-led design
- Clearly explain design decisions

Your role is to ensure the right content is delivered to users at the right time, in the right format.

You will work closely with user researchers and service designers to test ideas.

**Job description**:
Your main day to day responsibilities will be:

- Developing content plans that advise on how content can be best used at different points of a user’s journey, and which advise on what content should be presented, by whom, in which formats and when.
- Scoping, writing and editing content for complex internal and public-facing services.
- Developing low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes of different forms of content.
- Working as part of a multidisciplinary team to identify user needs, write and map user stories, design content plans, and agree the right design approach.
- Identifying and engaging with stakeholders to clarify objectives, constraints and commitments, while focusing on user needs.
- Monitoring the performance of content and tools, identifying ways to improve the service.
- Helping other Home Office colleagues understand what content design is, why it’s important and how to work with content designers.

**Person specification**:
**UK residency and security requirements**:

- **You need to have lived in the UK for the past 5 years.**

**Essential criteria**

You will be assessed against the following skills and experience during the selection process:

- ** Content design**: scoping, writing, editing and managing user-centred content to make sure it’s accurate, timely, relevant, accessible and written to style, and developing content plans that outline what should be presented, when, by whom and in which formats.
- ** Prototyping and concept creation**: creating and using prototypes to share and test design proposals, ideally covering different content formats.
- ** Evidence-based design**: using analytics, feedback and research to understand user needs and to inform content decisions.
- ** Accessibility and inclusion**: assessing the accessibility of content and advising teams how to fix issues so it is inclusive and accessible to all.
- ** Communicate, persuade and advocate**: convincing stakeholders and team members about the benefits of adopting an accessible, UCD approach.
- ** Managing people and leading**: managing