Service Design Lead (CTC and NPPV cleared)

Service Design Lead

Location: London - Hybrid - 3 days on site in London
Contract Type: Contract
Day Rate: Competitive
Duration: Initial 6 months with extension potential
Security Clearance: NPPV Level 2 or NPPV Level 3 and CTC Clearance are essential requirements

Overview

We are supporting a major UK Law Enforcement organisation undergoing significant digital transformation and service modernisation. They are seeking an experienced Service Design Lead to help shape, design and improve critical services used by operational teams, frontline officers, investigators and support functions.

This is an opportunity to work on high-profile programmes that directly impact public safety, operational effectiveness and the delivery of citizen-facing services. You will play a leading role in ensuring services are designed around user needs whilst balancing operational, security, policy and technology considerations within a highly regulated environment.

The successful candidate will bring strong service design leadership experience, ideally gained within Government, Law Enforcement, Policing, Justice, Defence or other complex public sector environments.

The Role

As Service Design Lead, you will be responsible for leading service design activity across multiple programmes and products, ensuring services are user-centred, accessible, efficient and aligned to organisational objectives.

You will work closely with senior stakeholders, operational users, delivery teams, product managers, business analysts, researchers, architects and technology teams to understand current services, identify pain points and design future-state service experiences.

The role requires someone who can operate strategically whilst remaining hands-on when required, facilitating workshops, mapping journeys and translating complex requirements into practical service improvements.

Key Responsibilities Service Design Leadership

• Lead service design activities across complex transformation programmes.
• Define and drive service design approaches, methodologies and standards.
• Ensure services are designed around user needs and operational outcomes.
• Develop service visions, service blueprints and target operating models.
• Champion user-centred design principles across delivery teams.

User and Operational Understanding

• Work closely with user researchers to understand user needs, behaviours and challenges.
• Engage with frontline operational teams and stakeholders to gather insights.
• Translate research findings into actionable service improvements.
• Identify opportunities to improve efficiency, effectiveness and user experience.

Service Mapping and Design

• Create and maintain:
  • Service blueprints
  • Customer journey maps
  • Ecosystem maps
  • Process maps
  • Future-state service models
• Analyse end-to-end services across people, process, technology and policy.
• Identify service failures, risks, bottlenecks and opportunities for optimisation.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Facilitate workshops with senior stakeholders and operational teams.
• Build strong relationships across business, digital and operational functions.
• Present findings, recommendations and design artefacts to senior leadership.
• Support decision-making through evidence-based design approaches.

Transformation and Change

• Support large-scale transformation programmes and digital initiatives.
• Help define future operating models and service strategies.
• Ensure service design outputs align with organisational objectives and delivery plans.
• Contribute to continuous improvement and service optimisation initiatives.

Essential Experience

• Significant experience leading service design activities within complex organisations.
• Proven experience working within Government, Law Enforcement, Policing, Criminal Justice, Defence or wider Public Sector environments.
• Strong understanding of service design methodologies and best practice.
• Experience developing service blueprints, journey maps and operating models.
• Experience facilitating workshops and engaging senior stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience working within multidisciplinary agile delivery teams.
• Strong understanding of user-centred design principles.
• Experience balancing user needs with operational, policy, security and technical requirements.
• Excellent communication, facilitation and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to work effectively in complex and highly regulated environments.

Essential Security Requirements

Applicants must hold one of the following active clearances:

• NPPV Level 2 (Non-Police Personnel Vetting)
• NPPV Level 3 (Non-Police Personnel Vetting)

AND

• CTC (Counter Terrorist Check) Clearance