Lead Service Designer - Police Staff - Technology - Counter Terrorism Policing HQ

Vacancy Reference Number

21970

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Number of Vacancies
1
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(B) OCU
CTPHQ Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters
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Location
West Brompton
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Band
Band L
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Part/Full Time
Full Time
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Hours per Week
36 hours per week
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Type of Contract
Permanent
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Job Advert

Job Title: Lead Service Designer - Police Staff - Technology - Counter Terrorism Policing HQ

Salary: The starting salary is £71,121, which includes allowances totalling £3,009.

The salary is broken down as £68,112 basic salary, which will increase annually until you reach the top of the scale £72,953. Plus, a location allowance of £2,009 and a non-pensionable allowance of £1,000.

Location: West Brompton

Background

The Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters (CTP HQ), on behalf of the government and the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), ensures that the CT Network has the funding, capabilities and resources it needs to deliver CONTEST effectively and to keep people safe from Terrorism. It does this through the provision of corporate services as well as national operational tasking and co-ordination. It houses unique national CT capabilities that support the entire network as well as overseeing delivery of CT Policing across the regions to ensure that it operates in a way that is both effective and efficient. Crucially, the HQ represents CT Policing’s interest within government and with wider stakeholders, ensuring that the policing contribution to CONTEST is both understood and appreciated.

Within CTP HQ the Digital, Data, Analysis & Technology (DDAT) Directorate has responsibility for guiding the CT Network’s exploitation of data and analytical capability and leading the integration of new technology to support our national security mission. The Directorate works closely with other principal areas of CTPHQ to ensure coherence with our technology development, transformation and compliance and assurance functions, helping to ensure that our use of data is always lawful, ethical and proportionate and uses the best available capability without ever compromising our vital public trust. Work within the pillar also involves setting up new processes and ways of working in high-profile environments. In order to achieve this, staff within the pillar work closely with the other teams across the CT Network and CTP HQ and with partners in the MPS, leading on shaping and implementing the new DDAT strategy and developing future data capabilities.

Job Summary

The Lead Service Designer role provides strategic leadership to ensure services are user-centred, driving improvements in satisfaction, accessibility, and effectiveness. It champions the reduction of duplication, streamlines processes, and ensures services operate seamlessly end-to-end, rather than as isolated components.

They will achieve this through setting vision, strategy and direction against the following areas:

Leadership & collaboration

Leading and developing the transformation of CTP to a Design Thinking organisation
Leading Service Design detail for CTP strategic directives such as partner alignment,
Responsible for communicating design strategy across organisation boundaries
Lead and Influence senior stakeholders and advocate for service-led approaches, working closely with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Developers and Operation teams
Lead the review of requirements in order to make financial commitments
Lead the engagement of third party suppliers and partner support teams in order to address commercial considerations related to Service Design
Manage expectations for long term budget adjustments aligned to the Service Roadmap
Accountable for the long term development of the ‘new team’ with appropriate technical training packages, developing learning pathways and identifying further opportunities for the team in collaboration with partners, meeting the expectations of the delivery teams and the organisation strategy
Responsible for guiding the organisation in how to use evidence to improve services

Research and Discovery

Leading qualitative and quantitative research (interviews, workshops & data analysis)
Identify user pain points, service failures, and technical development opportunities
Engage with frontline staff, users, and stakeholders to uncover insights
Engage with partner organisations and academia via the Counter Terrorism Research Laboratory (CTRL)

Design & Mapping

Accountable for the engagement and management of Technical Service Managers and Programme Directors to develop current and future design concepts
Accountable for ensuring service design is inclusive, accessible and environmentally sustainable
Responsible for identifying risks, opportunities and constraints in technology and policy to shape design
Responsible for ensuring security principles, guidelines and processes are embedded in Service Design
Lead in the development of user systems thinking to understand and design for complex technical service environments with creation of service maps, user journeys, personas, and ecosystem diagrams
Lead co-design sessions and workshops with users and stakeholders, developing user stories/ epics

Prototyping and testing

Ensure the secure development and management of prototypes within policy constraints
Ensure the development of tooling requirements to maintain the security posture for CTP
Lead on work with UX/UI designers and develops technical prototype & service concepts,
Test service designs with real users iteratively to validate assumptions, gathering feedback and work with developers to refine the service accordingly

PERSON SPECIFICATION:
Knowledge

Extensive knowledge and experience of Service Design Principles, prototyping & iterative service development
Extensive knowledge and experience of Agile delivery
Extensive knowledge and experience of ITIL 4 /5
Seasoned practitioner in use of Prince2 methodology and/or other Project Methodologies/frameworks (e.g. Association of Project Management)
Seasoned professional who delivers throughout complex multi-delivery mechanisms, using both Agile and Prince2, navigating complex governance and risk management.

Skills

Confident in facilitating transformational change in ways of working to address the Service Design expectations of our diverse needs across business networks. Delivering across the span of security, technology and governance in meeting the challenges of a demanding user base and ensuring alignment with corporate strategy in collaborative environments. The Lead Service Designer will require skills to address the following areas:

Leading service design expectation towards converging services under Police Reform or other national strategies
Manage and develop a team of Service Designers to meet the varying needs across portfolios
Managing budgets across planned service design delivery, balancing risk and mitigation against existing constraints
Holds authoritive control for approval of service-design artefacts and acceptance criteria prior to transition to BAU
Within a complex security conscious, multi-agency and partner environments requiring discretion and compliance, ensures ethical design standards are robustly maintained.
Deliver service design artefacts and governance materials that shape digital and operational service delivery, aligning services to key service design principles.
Prioritises the work of the Service Design team to meet the obligations of the delivery teams.
Building and developing a constructive teams, ensuring necessary development through skilling and education towards Service Design Thinking,
Leading design systems for use across multiple services and identify the simplest of a variety of approaches
Setting and managing standards, frameworks, and test practices for service design across teams
Pulling service design into the forefront of planning and delivery to ensure that user centred Service Design is fully integrated into large and complex portfolios.
Integrating plans of core service components across the service portfolio to maximise operational output and ensure continuous development and improvement
Controlling prototyping design systems, setting standards and balancing these against user expectations, ensuring effective testing
Collaborating with the Data Science community to ensure that the range of enhancements provided are reflected and addressed into effective release management
Developing a collaborative environment for consistent and productive dialogue between Users, Project Management, Service Delivery & Service Operations, at all levels
Actively championing Service Design Principles, ITIL 4/5 and Agile methodologies including Continual Service Improvement.

Experience

Proven professional with extensive experience in the following:

Communicating with stakeholders, setting strategic direction and developing process and governance to support achieving development success through effective Service Design
Delivery within tight budget lines
Managing risk and security
Collaborative partnership working
Addressing culture change to ensure expectations to learn and grow in service design

Vetting

This post requires access to the most sensitive intelligence material on a daily basis. Applicants must hold or be prepared to undergo National Security Vetting (NSV) Developed Vetting (DV) level before taking up the post.

This post requires British nationality (some dual nationals may be ineligible) and a Developed Vetting (DV) clearance.

As the post holder will have access to very sensitive information, there are limitations on travelling to a small number of countries and we will undertake additional security checks as part of the recruitment process. Applications from candidates with close connections to certain countries may take considerably longer to process, or in some cases result in a withdrawal of an offer of employment. Further details will be provided at the conditional offer stage.

Confidentiality Agreement

Applicants should also be aware of the need to sign a confidentiality agreement on taking up the post.

Our Colleague Commitments

Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) continues to prioritize an inclusive and supportive working environment and culture, where all of our people feel a strong sense of belonging and are empowered to reach their full potential. CTP keeps the nation and everyone in it safe from all manner of threats and as those threats evolve, so do we - that’s why Inclusion, Diversity and Equality (IDE) is the key to supporting our greatest asset, our people.

Our people protect our national security across the UK. In order to continue to deliver against our organizational priorities, we collectively seek to ensure that all colleagues feel respected, supported and valued to fully participate in the delivery of our mission – “working to keep people safe from Terrorism”.

IDE is at the heart of our approach to make the composition of Counter Terrorism Policing more representative of the communities we serve. As Counter Terrorism is rooted in Local Policing, to tackle today’s complex policing challenges, applications from across all backgrounds, cultures and experiences are therefore essential and encouraged. The CTP Network is committed to ensuring that candidates identifying as disabled are able to realize their fullest career aspirations and, as such, will endeavor to accommodate any reasonable adjustments that you may require during the recruitment process. CTP also welcomes applications from candidates seeking flexible working arrangements, such as part-time working, job-share and where the role permits, hybrid working arrangements. All flexible working arrangements should be discussed and agreed with the hiring manager.

How to apply

To begin your career at the Met, please click the "apply button “. The application process requires a comprehensive CV, a Personal Statement, and an online application form. In your Personal Statement, you should explain your interest in the position and illustrate how your skills and experiences make you a suitable candidate. Please note that you should not submit two copies of your CV, and ensure that your documents are saved in either PDF or Word format, clearly labelled as CV and Personal Statement.

Completed applications must be submitted by 23:55 on 24/08/2026.

www.metpolicecareers.co.uk

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Essential For The Role

Qualifications

Degree or Masters level in Human-centered Design and Engineering; or UX Design; or have equivalent knowledge and experience.
Programme and project management approaches such as MSP, PRINCE2 and Agile,
Software delivery, including programming languages such as C~ and Python

Additional Information

Please refer to the following competencies and values when completing your personal statement:

Competencies

We are emotionally aware
We take ownership
We collaborate
We deliver, support and inspire

Met Values

Integrity
Accountable
Empathy
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Required Languages
English
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Reports To
Service Design & Transition Lead
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Additional Information
CTP CVF Staff Band.pdf – 807KB Opens in a new window
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Disability Confident Statement

The Met is committed to being an equitable (fair and impartial) and inclusive employer for disabled people, striving to have a diverse and representative workforce at all levels. We encourage applications from people from the widest possible range of backgrounds, cultures and experiences. We particularly welcome applications from people with disabilities and long-term conditions, ethnic minority groups and women.

As a Disability Confident Leader, the Met has committed to making disability equality part of our everyday practice. We ensure that people with disabilities and those with long term conditions have the opportunities to fulfil their potential and realise their aspirations.

The Met is committed to making reasonable adjustments to the recruitment process to ensure disabled applicants can perform at their best. If you need any reasonable adjustments or changes to the application and recruitment process, we ask that you include this information within your application form. All matters will be treated in strict confidence.

Please note, if you are applying for a police officer role or to become a police community support officer (PCSO) or designated detention officer (DDO), there is a minimum requirement that you must pass a job-related fitness test (JRFT) at point of entry. This does not apply to police staff roles. Find out more about police fitness standards.

Read our full disability confidence statement.

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