Lead Designer

Role: Lead Designer

Location: London/Remote

Contract/Perm: Perm

Start Date: ASAP

Clearances: Internal Background Check (DBS) / Eligible for Security Clearance  

About Us: 

Solirius Reply, part of the Reply Group, delivers technical consultancy and application delivery to our clients in order to solve real world problems and allow our clients to respond to an ever-changing technical landscape. We partner closely with our clients, embedding our consultants into their businesses in order to provide a bespoke service, allowing us to truly understand our clients’ needs.

It is this close collaboration with our clients that has enabled us to grow rapidly in recent years and will drive our ambitious future growth plans. We currently have over 300 consultants working with a variety of key clients from both the public and private sectors such as the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, FCDOS, UEFA, International Olympic Committee and Mercedes Benz; with plans to increase our client base further in the near future. 

We operate as a flat organisation and believe in trusting and supporting our team to operate independently. We pride ourselves on being specialists at what we do, making the most of our consultants’ expertise in their fields in order to provide a best-in-class service to our clients. All our consultants have the opportunity to work on a range of different projects, providing a broad range of knowledge on which to develop their careers and progress in the direction they choose.

The role

We’re looking for a Lead Designer to join our multidisciplinary team designing and delivering innovative digital products and services for our Government and Private Sector clients.

As a Lead Designer, alongside working on more complex projects, you will be a line manager. You’ll support the Head of Design with building and managing Solirius’ design community and ensuring a consistent approach to produce the highest quality work.

• You will work in multidisciplinary teams, often blended from Solirius, client and partner staff. You will help those teams create products and services that both meet the needs of the different people who will use and be affected by them, and help our clients achieve their intended outcomes.

• You will need to be a strong design generalist (content, interaction, UX and service design) to lead and have experience using a wide range of design methods in line with the Government Service Standard and Solirius’ practices, and support other designers to do the same. You will guide teams through external and internal service assessments.

• You will help us strengthen our design practice through hiring, managing, coaching and mentoring others. You will help to improve the way we work, developing and documenting our practices to ensure the work we do has integrity and provides value.

• You will regularly share your experiences with the team and the wider design community to develop your own skills and help others improve across Solirius.

• You will lead and support activities to develop new client relationships and accounts for both the Design practice and wider Solirius team.

Skills and experience required:

User-centred design

• You understand user-centred design activities at all levels, from the ‘big picture’ through to detailed interaction, visual, content and information architecture design.

• You’re experienced in planning and leading design workshops at all stages of a project, from gathering initial user insights through to testing the usability of a product or service.

• You’re experienced in user research, utilising different research methods as appropriate, synthesis of qualitative and quantitative research data and findings, and are able to communicate insights in an engaging and concise way to engage stakeholders in data-informed decisions.

• You’re able to understand, facilitate and communicate a vision of change from both business and user perspectives.

• You’re experienced in creating hypotheses and mapping service experiences from insights, and defining changes to meet user and business needs.

• You’re experienced at rapid prototyping to test, iterate and validate solution designs.

• You’re experienced at producing concise artefacts (e.g. personas, journey maps, service blueprints, user stories) to help communicate user and business needs.

• You’re experienced at working with agile development teams and stakeholders to co-design products and services to meet user needs.

• You’re able to support and coach teams and stakeholders in the use of user-centred design and agile methodologies.
• You advocate for and ensure high standards of usability, accessibility and inclusivity for products and services.

• You have a detailed understanding and experience of working to the Government Service Standard. (essential)

Consulting, communications and productivity

• You’re able to understand client needs and both participate and lead in bid writing and client presentation activities to generate new business. Prior experience working within a consultancy or agency setting is desirable.

• You have experience with client account management and are able to work with client stakeholders to ideate and define new projects, develop statements of work and are confident in leading large-scale projects to successful completion.

• You have excellent verbal/written, listening and facilitation skills and are confident in communicating with stakeholders at all levels.

• You have the technical literacy to understand (at a high-level) technical processes, concepts and constraints.

• You naturally recognise and work within project constraints, supporting colleagues to ensure delivery of value to the client and their users.

• You’re instrumental in supporting the development of Solirius’ internal culture, tools, processes and growth opportunities.

Equality & Diversity:

Solirius Reply is an equal opportunities employer. We are committed to creating a work environment that supports, celebrates, encourages, and respects all individuals and in which all processes are based on merit, competence and business needs. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexuality, age, disability, ethnicity, marital status or any other protected characteristics.

Should you require further assistance or require any reasonable adjustments be put in place to better support your application process, please do not hesitate to raise this with us.

Benefits

• Competitive Salary
• Bonus Scheme
• Private Healthcare Insurance
• 25 Days Annual Leave + Bank Holidays
• Up to 10 days allocated for development training per year
• Enhanced Parental Leave
• Paid Fertility Leave (5 Days)
• Statutory & Contributory Pension
• EAP with Help@Hand
• Gym Membership Benefits
• Flexible Working
• Annual Away Days/Company Socials

The ideal candidate will share our values and be aligned with our ways of working and as your career progresses, you can expect to work across all areas of the development lifecycle, from strategy to implementation, and to take on assignments in different sectors. This will provide you with a broad base of experience from which to continue building an outstanding career.

Candidates should be open to working in different locations for different clients. Although most of our work is remote, candidates should be happy to meet regularly in our London office and travel as client needs dictate.