Head of Service Design

OPEN SESSIONS

If you would like to find out more about the role, the Service Design profession and what it’s like to work at HMLR, a Hiring Manager Q&A session where you can virtually ‘meet the team’ will be held via MS Teams on Tuesday 4th August 12:30pm.

Book your virtual seat:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1994296414260?aff=oddtdtcreator

 APPLICATIO PROCESS

As part of the application process, please submit a CV providing evidence against the following essential criteria:

• Extensive experience as a senior service designer or design leader working on complex services or systems.
• Recognised service design expert with extensive hands-on experience, demonstrating the ability to communicate its value in enhancing user experiences and supporting organisational goals

Job summary

HM Land Registry’s services form part of the critical national infrastructure, safeguarding land and property ownership valued at £8 trillion. This enables over £1 trillion worth of personal and commercial lending to be secured against property across England and Wales. For 160 years we have played a key role in the UK’s economic stability and growth.

We are now looking for an experienced senior service designer, or design leader with experience of working on complex services or systems to join us as Head of Service Design to help transform these critical services for the future.

Job description

This is a senior leadership role within the User Centred Design team in Customer and Strategy, offering a unique opportunity to shape how HMLR designs and delivers its services.

As the lead for Service Design, you will set the strategic direction for the discipline, guide and inspire multidisciplinary teams, and champion the value of service design across the organisation.

You will play a pivotal role in ensuring service design informs, shapes and delivers HMLR’s service strategy and supports the effective delivery of policy intent.

Working closely with the Head of User Centred Design, you will be responsible for ensuring services are user centred, effective, and bring measurable value to the organisation.

As an experienced service design expert operating in an agile, digital environment, you will act as a role model and advocate for the evolution of our services within HMLR, government, and the wider industry.

This is a complex and challenging role that will see the re-design of many paper-based and legacy services and the transformation of our data into something innovative and fit for purpose, that will change the future of land registration.

Main duties:

• You will be leading, motivating, and growing talented Service Designers, working with the Head of User Centred Design to set the direction of design within HMLR.
• Work with the Deputy Director of Digital Services, Lead product managers, Head of UCD and Business design to realise the service vision to deliver on HMLR’s Business design and service Strategy.
• Influence both design and organisational strategy and priorities; putting forward the case for Service led design to senior stakeholders and colleagues across disciplines and departments and presenting strategic service design thinking with product leads at programme and exec boards such as ExCo, communicating the value and future vision for end-to-end services.
• You will be responsible for growing and developing the Service design capability, line-managing and mentoring Service Designers, supporting their professional development and evolving service design standards.
• You’ll work with the Head of UCD and other design leads to set design direction and good practice within the directorate including advocating for user-centred design with leaders outside of digital and data.
• You will be working across multiple, high-profile projects, working collaboratively with colleagues to design and iterate end to end services that support user needs, and ensure we are delivering secure, efficient, trusted and increase customer satisfaction, advocating for accessibility and inclusion in service delivery as well as in the development of teams. This role will be engaging their team of service designers to design the future state of our digital services, understanding HMLR’s wider role in the property sector and the different customers and users within it.
• Make and justify difficult service design decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity while having a wider understanding of how advances in technology, data, and AI impact the diversity users of government services.
• You will be overseeing the development of high-quality service design artefacts — such as journey maps, service blueprints, and prototypes to communicate design intent and test ideas. Coaching and mentoring to support the teams in identifying the right tools or methods to solve challenges and different problems for users.
• With the head of UCD evolve the design community across service design, content design and interaction design. Lead, motivate and empower teams, using coaching and mentoring to support the teams in identifying the right tools or methods to solve challenges and different problems for users.
• Help teams to understand the wider service context of a project or product, coordinating work across multiple projects, and working in an agile, multidisciplinary, and collaborative environment.
• Work with Head of UCD and senior colleagues at a leadership level across T&T and Service delivery to ensure a joined-up, agile and consistent approach to the design and delivery of the organisation’s customer-led, digital services.
• Coach teams through service assessments against standards.

Person specification

To meet the requirements of the role, you will be a highly experienced service designer, or design leader, with a strong track record of working on complex services and systems, operating confidently at senior level.

With hands‑on expertise in service design, you will be skilled in applying and standardising service design practices, methodologies, frameworks and tools to drive meaningful improvements to user experience and organisational outcomes.

You will be recognised as a service design expert, with proven experience of leading, developing and empowering service designers.

You will be highly effective at building positive, trusted relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, using strong communication, influencing and persuasion skills to build credibility for service design at all levels.

You will understand the bigger picture for a service to uncover long‑term challenges and opportunities and working with senior leaders to shape these into a compelling vision for the future.

For more information about essential skills, please see the attached Job Description and Candidate Pack.

Salary

Your salary will be determined following assessment at interview

• Developing: £78,200
• Proficient: £88,100
• Accomplished: £98,100

Office locations

The role is open across 14 of HMLR’s locations:

Birkenhead (CH41 6DU), Croydon (CR0 2AQ), Coventry (CV1 2WT), Durham (DH1 5TR), Weymouth (DT4 9TT), Gloucester (GL1 1DQ), Kingston upon Hull (HU2 8JN), Leicester (LE3 5DR), Nottingham (NG2 1AW), Peterborough (PE2 8YY), Plymouth (PL6 5WS), Warton (PR4 1TE), Swansea (SA7 9FQ), Telford (TF3 4LR)

Additional Requirements

• HMLR expect everyone to spend 60% of their working time in one of the offices.
• Occasional travel will be required to HMLR offices, supplier sites and other government departments, which may include overnight stays
• This role operates under the flexible working hours agreement, supporting a positive work-life balance
• The post is subject to BPPS level clearance
• This role does not meet the category to offer sponsorship, and HMLR will not sponsor a skilled worker visa. You must ensure you have the appropriate right to work in the UK before applying. 

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £78,200 plus any allowance up to £98,100 HM Land Registry contributes £22,654 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides (opens in a new window). Plus:

• Annual leave of 28.5 days’ paid holiday during each holiday year plus 8 days public holidays
• A clear progression pathway inc. personalised training and development plans including expensed accreditations with training days set aside
• Over 29% employer pension contribution 
• Flexi-time scheme (You decide what working hours work best for you)
• Opportunity to work condensed hours
• Social and sports club
• Access to our employee assistance programme for counselling and support on a wide range of issues
• Interest-free loan for season tickets
• Cycle to work scheme (salary sacrifice).
• HMLR have a strong and positive culture, a commitment to inclusivity, an emphasis on continuous learning and development and flexible ways of working.

At HM Land Registry our vision is a world leading property market as part of a thriving economy and a sustainable future. We are unique in terms of the economic and social impacts of our work, our ability to make a positive difference to the lives of our customers, our sense of mission, and our great people. They are the foundation of all we have achieved and all we aspire to in the future. We want our people to feel proud to work for HM Land Registry and able to fulfil their full potential.

We have a strong and positive culture, a commitment to inclusivity, an emphasis on continuous learning and development, and flexible ways of working. We offer competitive pay and annual leave, attractive pension options and a wide range of other benefits.

• We have integrity – we value honesty, trust and doing the right thing in the right way.
• We drive innovation – we are forward-thinking, embrace change and are continually improving our processes.
• We are professional – we value and grow our knowledge and professional expertise.
• We give assurance – we guarantee our services and provide confidence to the property market.

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/land-registry/about/recruitment#what-hm-land-registry-can-offer-you

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours at interview stage. 

As part of the initial application process, please submit a CV providing evidence against the following essential criteria:

• Extensive experience as a senior service designer or design leader working on complex services or systems.
• Recognised service design expert with extensive hands-on experience, demonstrating the ability to communicate its value in enhancing user experiences and supporting organisational goals

We are working with our recruitment partner (Inspire People) for this campaign. 

• Inspire People will assess your CV and Personal Statement and will compile a longlist of applications for HM Land Registry to sift.
• If you progress through this stage, you will be asked to complete a short, pre-recorded video with Inspire People on the essential experience, details will be provided on invitation. HM Land Registry will then sift these applications.
• If successful, you will be invited to attend a face to face interview at our Coventry office, week commencing Monday 24th August 2026. 
• The blended interview will assess the essential technical skills, essential experience and behaviours as listed in the job description. This will include a pre-prepared presentation.
• Candidates may refer to notes within their interview, but they should be used as a prompt only.  

Behaviours

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the interview:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions

Other information

HMLR is accredited to the Disability Confidence Scheme, which denotes organisations which have a positive attitude towards disabled people. Disabled applicants who meet the minimum essential criteria at the shortlisting stage are guaranteed an invitation to interview.If any candidate requires the panel to consider a reasonable adjustment or there is anything else they would like the panel to take into consideration they are asked to notify us of this at application stage where possible or during the process as soon as it becomes a requirement.

The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to share these values. Please ensure all examples provided throughout the recruitment process are representative of your own experience. Any instances of plagiarism or other forms of cheating (including the improper use of artificial intelligence) will be investigated and, if proven, the application will be withdrawn.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name :Zymante Gintalaite – Inspire People
• Email :zymante@inspirepeople.net

Recruitment team

• Email :hrresourcingteam2@landregistry.gov.uk

Click here to view original advert on Civil Service jobs.

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