Service Designer

Key details

Location: Glasgow or London

Contract: Permanent 

Salary: Glasgow £28,080 - £39,920, London £35,100 - £49,900,

Deadline: Recruitment is ongoing. The vacancy will be closed when available positions are filled so please don’t delay.

This role requires Security Clearance and applicants will need to have been a continuous resident in the UK for the past 5 years 

About the company

Snook are on a mission to design a world that works better for people. 

We design sustainable and fair services with people’s real needs at their heart. We do this by engaging with users, building digital products, training our clients, and much more.

Snook started as a service design company in Scotland in 2009. We have now become a multidisciplinary team of almost 100 people, based in Glasgow and London. We’ve worked with brilliant clients across the public, private and third sectors. Clients have included Cancer Research UK and Tesco to Hackney City Council and the Scottish Government.

Next Era Government

One of Snook’s core missions is ‘Next Era Government’. We want to make sure that human needs are at the centre of government services’ design and delivery. We are the User-Centred Design partner for multiple government agencies, including Home Office, Department for Education, and the NHS. 

About the role

As a Service Designer at Snook, the core of your role will be helping to design accessible and inclusive end-to-end services. 

We work with a broad range of clients, some of whom are completely new to user-centred design (UCD). This means you’ll also play a key role in championing our UCD approach.

Recent projects Snook Service Designers have worked on include:

NHS – Designing an outpatient appointment booking service for patients less likely to use the digital booking system.

Home Office – Using research and evidence to improve the design of critical systems that help keep our country safe.

Department for Education – Designing a set of standards and resources to help children's social care services get the most from digital technology.

Working in these sectors will give you valuable experience of applying Government Service Standards and preparing for Government Service Assessments.

When possible, we rotate people from one sector to another after 3 to 12 months (depending on the project), enabling people to develop in-depth knowledge of a variety of sectors.

The wider team

Beyond individual projects, Snook’s Service Designers support each other at weekly remote meetups where we share our work, discuss its wider implications, and learn about methods.

You’ll also broaden your skills by working closely with members of the User Research and Digital teams. On our larger scale projects, you’ll have the opportunity to work with Business Analysts and policy experts. 

All of our Service Designers are supported by more senior members of the Service Design team. They look after your wellbeing, help you set goals and objectives and provide feedback to help you grow.

Your skills and experience

Essential 

These skills are important foundations for anyone applying for this role.

Service design

• You are a skilled practitioner with a proven track record of delivering service design work in varied environments. 
• You can use multiple forms of research and stakeholder participation to design user-centred services and experiences.
• You strive to ensure that the services you design are inclusive, accessible and planet-friendly. 
• You ensure that what you design is feasible and viable, through an understanding of business and contextual constraints.

Multidisciplinary teams: 

• You are at home in multidisciplinary teams working on complex projects.
• You have worked alongside other user centered design roles such as user researchers and interaction designers. 
• Youtube the initiative and can operate independently to support teams in delivering projects in scope and on budget.

Research and analysis: 

• You contribute to planning research to uncover the key factors affecting a service and its use. 
• You can identify research questions, approaches and activities appropriate to the project context, constraints and outcomes. 
• You are confident in conducting research effectively and efficiently. 
• You can analyse research findings to identify and concisely summarise actionable insights.

Facilitation: 

• You have experience designing, organising and delivering workshops that support project objectives. 
• You support teams to present to clients, stakeholders and internally and engage and inspire them on a project or topic.

Communication: 

• You can create professional, consistent written and visual communications that relay information in a concise, accessible and impactful way.
• You can construct persuasive narratives, to motivate and inspire a range of audiences.

Prototyping: 

• You know when and how to use prototypes at relevant project stages. 
• You can work across disciplines to design, build and test prototypes that meet or contribute towards project outcomes.

Project management:

• You have experience of project management and can support project leads to deliver desired outcomes on time and on budget.
• You have experience working with Agile project management processes.
• You can identify project deliverables, explain next steps and delegate tasks amongst a team.

Desirable

If you’ve done any or all of the following, we’re especially keen to meet you!

Supporting new business: 

You have experience of developing new business opportunities, including creating proposals and pitching to prospective clients.

Strategy & systems thinking:

• You understand and can communicate how projects and services fit into wider strategic contexts. 
• You can use systems thinking to map complex structures and systems, identify opportunities and produce strategic recommendations.

Team support and management: 

• You have experience leading small teams and supporting junior colleagues.

Public sector: 

• You’ve worked on projects for central or local government, either on their back office platforms or public facing services. 
• You have experience of the Government Service Standard.

Inclusivity, accessibility and sustainability:

• You have specific expertise around inclusivity, accessibility or sustainability. 

What we offer

• 25.5 days holiday per year, 4 public holidays, plus up to 6 days of Christmas closure.

• A supportive maternity package

• Flexible working hours through discussion to support family friendly working and other commitments you may have

• A bike to work scheme

• A vibrant and supportive online and studio culture

• Membership to Headspace, the meditation app

• Annual team away-day and quarterly show and tells where we come together as a company, taking time out to learn, reflect, and eat snacks

• Weekly learning sessions plus an annual training budget

• Snook group pension plan

• We support you with a Snook buddy when you join to get you started

How to apply 

This is a rolling recruitment, please do not delay your application as we are sifting and interviewing daily. The vacancy will be closed when available positions are filled.

We ask you to submit a:

• CV

• cover letter that tells us about you, why you want to work at Snook, what sort of design problems you’d be interested in tackling with us and what your notice period is

• portfolio of your work highlighting key projects

If you do not have a portfolio, we have created a simple template that you can use.

To apply, please follow this link, and open up the jobs page for the Mid-level Interaction Designer position.

If you have any questions please get in touch at [email protected]

Remote interviews

Due to the current Covid-19 situation, all interviews will be conducted remotely. We will offer interviews at times that suit you, so if you have children, caring duties or other circumstances affecting your availability, we’re happy to offer convenient times outside of work hours.

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion 

We strive for diversity in our team. If we’re going to design services for the public we need to ensure our team is inclusive. Snook encourages applications from all backgrounds, abilities or impairments, communities and industries. We’re committed to having a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities.