Senior Service Designer

Registers Of Scotland; City of Edinburgh, Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 48,000 - 58,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading public service organization is seeking a Senior Service Designer to ensure seamless service journeys, influencing the design practice across the organization. This role involves leading design concepts, gathering customer insights, and mentoring team members. The ideal candidate will thrive in hybrid working, enjoy flexible arrangements, and contribute to impactful solutions for the people of Scotland. Join a pioneering team that values creativity and innovation in digital service delivery.

Benefits

Pension contributions up to 28.97%

38 days annual holiday

Parental leave

Investment in professional development

Agile and positive work culture

Qualifications

• At least two years of experience in service design.
• Proven track record of mentoring and influencing teams.
• Experience with customer journey mapping across digital and offline services.

Responsibilities

• Lead design concepts and shape services for better customer experience.
• Facilitate workshops to refine journeys with customers.
• Engage in all stages of the service lifecycle as needed.

Skills

Service design practices

Customer journey mapping

Stakeholder engagement

Workshop facilitation

Education

Relevant degree or equivalent experience

Tools

User research tools

Design software

Job description

Role: Senior Service Designer

Total Remuneration: £56,311- £66,299

Pay Supplement: The base salary for this role is £48,544-£57,155. This job qualifies for Digital, Data and Technology Annual Pay supplement of 16% which is included in the total remuneration above.

Pension: 28.97% of base salary (RoS contribution)

Annual Leave: 38 days annual holiday, increasing to 42 days with length of service.

Duration: Permanent

Working Pattern: 35 hours per week. We are a flexible employer and will consider a variety of working patterns on a case‑by‑case basis. For example, compressed hours, term‑time working or part‑time working.

Location: Hybrid working model. Contractual base either at Meadowbank House, Edinburgh (EH8 7AU), or St Vincent Plaza, Glasgow (G2 5LD). You will be expected to attend one of these locations as required by the role.

Grade: Senior Executive Officer

Department: User Centred Design

Directorate: Digital, Data and Technology

Role Reports to: Service Design Lead

Closing date: 25th of January 2026

Registers of Scotland (RoS) – Join an award‑winning organisation recognised for its technology and innovation. Registers of Scotland is a world‑leading pioneer in land and property registration. Our full‑stack teams design, architect, and build all our registration products in‑house. We work to create digital solutions for the people of Scotland. You will get an opportunity to nurture your creativity and develop with us through access to the latest data, software engineering and product delivery techniques.

Inclusion

We welcome applications from all backgrounds and are committed to building a diverse workforce that reflects Scotland. We particularly welcome applications from underrepresented groups in technology and design. Your unique perspective and experience will strengthen our team’s ability to create services that work for all our communities.

This job is for you if you want…

• Work with purpose: working for the people of Scotland to set the bar for land and property registration worldwide.
• Flexible and hybrid working: depending on the role and team requirements, work when and where it’s best for you and your stakeholders.
• Benefits: enjoy pay progression, pension contributions of up to 28.97%, up to a year’s parental leave, and 38 days annual holiday, increasing to 42 days with length of service.
• Investment in professional development: we invest in all our people so that they have the right skills to be productive and confident in their job.
• Diversity and Inclusion: We are an ‘Investor in People’ and a ‘Disability Confident’ employer. We are inclusive, stronger together, and committed to putting our people first.
• Positive work culture: RoS is an agile, digital organisation using leading‑edge technology. Colleagues understand their role in achieving our strategy and have the autonomy to deliver.

To learn more about RoS and what we offer visit our careers pages or watch this short video. Hear from our colleagues about their experience of working within our Digital, Data and Technology teams on our website.

The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Service Designer to take an end‑to‑end view of our service journeys, ensuring they flow seamlessly. This will help us deliver effortless digital experiences, build on customer satisfaction, and advance the practice of Service Design across RoS. In this role, you’ll lead design concepts, take ownership of shaping complex services, embed best practices within multi‑disciplinary teams, and make informed decisions grounded in research—while mentoring and influencing others.

This is an opportunity for an experienced service designer to create meaningful impact, drive positive change, and influence how our services are shaped and delivered.

On a typical day you will…

• Provide expert knowledge of service design practices and methodologies at a senior practitioner level and support the delivery of detailed visual customer journey flows across various RoS services.
• Visualise end to end services with front and backstage processes in line with user needs and business requirements.
• Facilitate workshops to validate and refine the journeys with key customers, colleagues and stakeholders. This includes an overview of why and how customer journeys are important for the organisation.
• Gather quantitative and qualitative data to inform the journey mapping, ensuring we understand the experience and pain points for the customer.
• Redesign services and/or embed new services focusing on ‘What matters to the customer.
• Share understanding of approach to service design and maturity and how this supports the Scottish Government approach (Scottish approach to service design and digital service standards).
• Help to embed Service design thinking into the service area and provide the skills to continue them into the wider business.
• Engage in any stage of the service lifecycle as required.
• Actively contribute to the design community by sharing knowledge, generating ideas, and embedding design principles.
• Be confident in engaging stakeholders and working with established governance forums such as the Service Alignment Team (SAT).
• Facilitate co‑design with colleagues in the business areas to produce improvements for services.
• Implement improvements across small groups to monitor and assess risk and impact before implementing on a larger scale.
• Collaborate with other User Centred Design resources, when required, on overlapping deliveries.
• Support any secondary activities as requested by the Principal Designer or Service Design Lead.
• Simplify complex ideas, visualise solutions, and adapt to uncertainty while working within organisational constraints.
• Remain calm and resilient under pressure, proactively spotting risks and responding to changing priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Essential Criteria – Skills and Attributes for Success

Technical Experience

• Experience delivering end‑to‑end service design across digital and offline channels, normally evidenced by at least two years in a similar role.
• Proven track record of influencing teams, mentoring others, and embedding good design practices.
• Experience making informed design decisions based on research, user insights, and organisational goals.

Behaviours

At application stage, you will be scored against the following behaviours at application and against all for the assessment:

Working Together

• able to listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders, and interpret between them
• able to manage stakeholder expectations and be flexible
• Capable of proactive and reactive communication
• facilitates difficult discussions within the team or with diverse senior stakeholders
• advise others how to effectively plan and run design sessions with a team, users or stakeholders
• adapt a design session to ensure you achieve a useful outcome
• effectively involve the right people throughout the design process
• work across team or profession boundaries, for example with policy teams

Leadership, Communication and Influencing

• works with higher impact or more complex risks
• builds consensus between services or independent stakeholders
• leads others to make good design decisions mentoring others, through pairing & role modelling
• shares best practice and can coach others
• devise teams on how to design inclusive, accessible and environmentally sustainable content or services
• design and deliver ethical content or services that consider the personal and social context of users
• ensure a design meets appropriate standards, for example accessibility regulation

Seeing the Big Picture

• identify and understand constraints across the business or service and is able to communicate these and work within them
• able to challenge the validity of constraints ensuring RoS standards are being met
• provide direction on which tools and methods to use by using experience to meet the needs of users across a variety of channels
• help a team understand how user‑centred design helps it meet its goals
• help teams align their work to the goals and vision of their organisation
• use risks, opportunities and constraints in technology, systems and policy to shape design

Managing a Quality Service

• visualising and implementing strategic service design end to end, applying different risk methodologies in proportion to the risk in question, with the ability to apply a digital understanding to their work and to identify and implement solutions for assisted digital
• able to help teams to manage and visualise outcomes and prioritise work effectively
• iterate and improve complex designs based on successive rounds of research
• adapt designs quickly to changes in requirements, priorities or user needs

Stage one – Application Process

To apply, click on 'Apply now' and complete the online application form.

You will need to submit:

1. A CV outlining your career history and how you meet the technical experience criteria (max 4 pages).
2. Complete the application questions that are related to the behaviours and the requirements of the role.

Please note:

• If we receive a high volume of applications, we may complete an initial sift on Technical Experience Criteria
• In line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles, should a high volume of applicants pass the sift stage we may hold a 30‑minute discussion with shortlisted candidates to assess the Technical experience criteria
• Applications that are not accompanied by CVs or responses exceeding 300 words per behaviour will not be considered
• We would strongly recommend that your statement is written in the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action & Result) and preparing your answers using software such as MS Word or Google Docs, and then uploading the file
• We strongly advise you review our policy on responsible use of AI in the application process. RoS may check answers with an AI detection tool and will contact you for a pre‑screening call to verify your responses
• Applications and appointments are subject to a strict merit‑based assessment process, in line with the Civil Service Recruitment Principles

Stage two – Assessment

If successful at application stage, you will be invited to an in‑person assessment which will include the following:

• Pre‑prepared presentation (will be shared with the candidates a week prior to the assessment day)
• Applied case study (the information for this task will be shared on the assessment day)

Recruitment timeline

• Closing date: 25th of January 2026
• Applications start: week commences 26th of January 2026
• Invites to assessment: week commences 2nd of February 2026
• Interviews: Week commences 9th of February 2026

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you progress to interview stage.

Nationality and immigration status

In general, only nationals from the following countries (and associations of countries) are eligible for employment in the Civil Service: the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Commonwealth. EU nationals (with settled or pre‑settled status), certain EEA nationals, Swiss and Turkish nationals are also eligible for employment. Detailed provisions on determining eligibility on the grounds of nationality and, where relevant, immigration status can be reviewed here.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a Basic Disclosure Scotland check. Individuals working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard checks.

Equality, diversity and inclusion

As a proud member of the Disability Confident Scheme, we welcome applications from disabled candidates. RoS is a diverse and inclusive workplace, and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of selection process is used. To learn more about diversity at RoS please see our EDI strategy.

As part of the application process, we would like to invite you to please complete our diversity monitoring form. This information is not shared with recruitment panels. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please let us know via [e-mail]. Please see this page for more information on adjustments.

DDAT supplement

This post is part of the Digital, Data and Technology profession (DDAT) and attracts a pay supplement. This is a tool which RoS uses to benchmark our salaries against current market rates. A review of the benchmark is undertaken every two years, this means that the supplement may go up or down depending on market activity. Advance notice will be given of any changes.

Further information

• Additional details on pay & benefits
• The Civil Service Code
• Complaints process
• Use of AI in the application/recruitment process

Please view our additional information page online.

If you have any questions, please contact [e-mail]