AMS PSR

On behalf of Homes England we are looking for a User Centred Design Lead (Inside IR35) for a 7 month contract. Hybrid working based in either Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Leeds, Newcastle or Bristol. 

Homes England, the government’s housing and regeneration agency, plays a central role in tackling the housing challenges the country now faces. We have the appetite, influence, expertise, and resource to drive positive market change, and our mission is to ensure more homes are built in areas of greatest need, improve affordability and create a sustainable housing market.

Following the publication of the government’s Levelling Up White Paper, Homes England has also been tasked with a core role in spearheading regeneration, partnering with places to reduce economic disparity, empower local leaders and create equal opportunities across the country to ensure communities reach their full potential.

The UCD Lead will be responsible for leading a blended team of Homes England and delivery partner user researchers, interaction designers and content designers, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, user-centred services that meet programme objectives while adhering to Government Digital Service (GDS) standards and best practice.

Working closely with product, delivery, policy and technical teams, the UCD Lead will champion user-centred design approaches, ensuring user needs remain at the heart of decision-making while balancing policy intent, business requirements, technical feasibility and delivery timelines.

As a User Centred Design Lead your main responsibilities will be to:

• Provide strategic leadership, direction and coaching to a multidisciplinary team of user researchers, interaction designers and content designers across Homes England and delivery partner organisations.
• Establish & maintain effective UCD ways of working and champion user-centred design across delivery teams, ensuring user needs remain central to decision-making.
• Lead the planning, prioritisation and delivery of UCD activities across multiple squads and workstreams, ensuring alignment with programme objectives and timelines.
• Assure the quality, consistency and governance of all UCD outputs, ensuring deliverables are documented, stored and managed in accordance with agreed standards.
• Ensure services are designed and delivered in line with the Government Service Standard, GDS guidance and accessibility requirements, taking a pragmatic approach to achieving compliance within programme constraints.
• Lead UCD assurance activities, supporting service assessments and promoting evidence-based decision-making through robust user insight.
• Build strong relationships across business SMEs, policy teams, delivery, operational, technical and supplier teams to drive collaborative service design.
• Influence strategic and delivery decisions by effectively communicating user needs, design recommendations and service improvement opportunities, enabling informed and balanced trade-offs across user, business, policy and technical considerations.

Essential:

• Proven ability to lead, coach and inspire multidisciplinary teams (user researchers, interaction designers, content designers) across complex organisational and supplier environments.
• Strong track record of establishing and embedding effective UCD practices, ensuring user needs are central to all decision-making across delivery teams.
• Demonstrated experience planning, prioritising and delivering UCD activities across multiple squads and workstreams, aligning outputs to programme objectives and timelines.
• Ability to assure consistency, quality and governance of UCD outputs, with robust documentation and adherence to agreed standards and best practice.
• Deep understanding of Government Service Standard, GDS guidance, and accessibility requirements, with the ability to apply these pragmatically within delivery constraints.
• Excellent relationship-building skills, with experience working across business SMEs, policy, delivery, operational, technical and supplier teams to enable collaborative service design.
• Ability to clearly communicate user needs, design recommendations and service improvements, influencing both strategic and delivery decisions while balancing user, business and technical priorities.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, Homes England guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant

Homes England guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".